>  What is the best way to compare 2 text files for
>  matching. Let's say both files have just people names
>  Thanks
>  


Does it matter what position they are in, or do you only want to know what
exists in both files? If it doesn't matter, you can do it as follows:

my $count = 0;
my $count2 = 0;
my $line;
my %hash;

open(FILE1, $file1) || die "Can't read $file1 : $!\n";
foreach $line (<FILE1> )
{
	$count++;
	chomp($line);
	$hash{$line}=$count;
}

close(FILE1);

open(FILE2, $file2) || die "Can't read $file2 : $!\n";
foreach $line (<FILE2> )
{
	$count2++;
	chomp($line);
	if ($hash{$line})
	{
		print "$line exists in file1.\n";
	}
	else
	{
		print "$line does NOT exist in file1.\n";
	}

}

### END

if you need to know positional, then you can use the value of $hash{$line}
and compare it to $count in the second pass.
	


>  File1           File2
>  James           Joe
>  Tina            Patrick
>  Steve           James
>  ...             ....
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