my %htable_re;   

#reading in small file  
while($cur_line=<size_log>)  
{     
	my @command=split(/;;;+/,$cur_line);     
	$htable_re{$command[0]}=qr/\b($command[0])\b/i   
	#parse remainder of line...  
}     

#pattern match against big file  
while(<fh_log>)  
{
     foreach $key (keys %htable_re)
	 {     
		if(/$htable_re{$key}/ ) #If this query contains reference to this table     
		{
			$table_stats{$key}++; #count up how many times this table is referenced.
			$table_refs++;     
		}    
	} 
}