use strict; use warnings; open my $name_infh => '<', 'path/to/names/list' or die "Unable to open names list: $!\n"; open my $haystack_infh => '<', 'path/to/tab/del/file' or die "Unable to open haystack file: $!\n"; my $name = <$name_infh>; chomp $name; while (my $line = <$haystack_infh>) { my ($test_name, $payload) = split /\t/, $line, 2; if ($name eq $test_name) { print "We have a winner: $test_name => $payload"; $name = <$name_infh>; last if !defined $name; chomp $name; } }