$ time ./757954_bytevector.pl >out real 0m4.421s user 0m4.368s sys 0m0.048s ---------- #!/usr/bin/perl # create file with numbers to look up open (my $fh, ">", "in.txt") || die "$!"; for (1..1000000) { print $fh int rand 1e6, "\n"; } close $fh; my $ids = 1000000; # last id my $bin=0; substr($bin,$_,1,pack ("c",0)) for (0..$ids); # Create the index for (1..400000) { my $id = int rand 1e6; substr($bin, $id,1,pack ("c",1)); } # Search $ids open my $fh2, "<", "in.txt" or die $!; while (<$fh2>){ my ($num) = m/^(\d+)/; print "$num, " if ((unpack "c",substr ($bin,$num,1)) == 1); }