#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use Text::Table;
use Tie::IxHash;
use Fcntl qw( :flock );
use List::Util qw( max );
use POSIX qw( strftime );
use Data::Dumper qw( Dumper );
use constant ARGUMENTS => scalar 1;

$| = 1;

my ($value , $table);
my %hash = ();

sub hash_sub {

    foreach my $arg (@_) {

	open ( READ, "<" , $arg )
	    or die ("Could not open: ".$arg." - $!\n");

	flock( READ , LOCK_EX )
	    or die "Could not lock '".$arg."' - $!\n";

	if (-z "".$arg."") {
	    print "File '".$arg."' is empty!\n";
	    # -z  File has zero size (is empty).
	}

	my @doc_read = <READ>;

	chomp @doc_read;

	foreach $_ (@doc_read) {
	    my @result = split (':', $_);

	    if (/^\s*$/) { # /^\s*$/ check for "blank" lines may contain spaces or tabs
		next;
	    }

	    push (@$value , $result[3]);
	}

	$hash{$arg} = $value;
	$value = (); # emptying the string_ref for the next ARGV

	close (READ)
	    or die ("Could not close: ".$arg." - $!\n");
    }

    my $max_idx = max map $#$_ , values %hash;
    
    my $tb = Text::Table->new;

    foreach my $i (0 .. $max_idx) {
	$tb->add( $i + 1 . ' ' , map $hash{$_}[$i] , sort keys %hash );
    }
    return $tb;
}

$table = hash_sub(@ARGV);

print $table;

##</code><code>##

Line_1:Line_1_1:Line_1_2:Line_1_3:Line_1_4
Line_2:Line_2_1:Line_2_2:Line_2_3:Line_2_4

##</code><code>##

Line_3:Line_3_1:Line_3_2:Line_3_3:Line_3_4

##</code><code>##

Line_4:Line_4_1:Line_4_2:Line_4_3:Line_4_4
Line_5:Line_5_1:Line_5_2:Line_6_3:Line_5_4
Line_6:Line_6_1:Line_6_2:Line_6_3:Line_6_4
Line_7:Line_7_1:Line_7_2:Line_7_3:Line_7_4

##</code><code>##

1  Line_1_3 Line_3_3 Line_4_3
2  Line_2_3          Line_5_3
3                    Line_6_3
4                    Line_7_3

##</code><code>##

1  Line_3_3 Line_4_3 Line_1_3
2           Line_5_3 Line_2_3
3           Line_6_3
4           Line_7_3

##</code><code>##

my $t = Tie::IxHash->new(%hash);
$t->SortByKey;
print Dumper(\$t);