my %first; while (<$one>) { chomp; my @data = split /\t/; $first{$data[0]}=$data[1]; # fill the hash with the values from the first file } close $one; while (<$two>) { chomp; # just search the hash for these strings exists $first{$_} && print $foutname $first{$_},'\n'; } close $two; close $foutname || warn "$fout: $!\n';