open (IP1,"ipsnew.txt"); open (WHERE,"whereby.txt"); while () { if (/^(.*?)(\d+\.\d+\.\d+)(.*?)$/) { $beg_line1{2} = $1; $ip1 = $2; # print IP1 "$ip1\n"; # print "@ip1\n"; } } while () { if (/^(.*?)(\d+\.\d+\.\d+)(.*?)$/) { $beg_line2 = $1; $ip2 = $2; # print IP1 "$ip1\n"; # print "@ip2\n"; } } if ($beg_line1{$ip1} == $beg_line2{$ip2}) { print "we have a match at $ip1\n";}