#! /usr/bin/perl -w use strict; unless (2 == @ARGV) { die "Usage: $0 file1 file2"; } open(FILE1, "<", $ARGV[0]) or die "Can't read '$ARGV[0]': $!"; open(FILE2, "<", $ARGV[1]) or die "Can't read '$ARGV[1]': $!"; my $string1 = ; my $string2 = ; while (not $is_end) { if ($string1 lt $string2) { $string1 = or last; } elsif ($string1 gt $string2) { $string2 = or last; } else { print $string1; $string1 = or last; $string2 = or last; } }