for my $value (@text[11, 12, 14, 15, 19]) {
    if ($bHash{ $text[3] } eq $value) {
        $bHash{ $text[0] } = $value;
        last;
    }
}
[download]

Hi Choroba, That's exaclty what I mean! but i can't figure out what's wrong with it? i've included it in my coding but it doesn't work:

foreach (<$ah>)

    {
    my $nullval = ' ';
    my @text = split(/\t/);
    my $value (@text[11, 12, 14, 15, 19])

    
    
    if ($bHash{ $text[3] } eq $value) {
        $bHash{ $text[0] } = $value;
        last;
     
    print OUT2 join( "\t", @text[1,2,3,4,11,5,6,8,7,11,12]),"\t$nullva
+l\t$nullval\t$nullval\t$nullval\t$nullval\t$nullval\t$nullval\t$nullv
+al\t$nullval\t$nullval\t1\t1\n";
    }
}
[download]

The for is also important.
لսႽ† ᥲᥒ⚪⟊Ⴙᘓᖇ Ꮅᘓᖇ⎱ Ⴙᥲ𝇋ƙᘓᖇ

You're making stuff up again, for loop is for loop, its a for loop

What does that mean?

You're making up syntax and you're hoping I know what you mean by it -- I can venture a guess, but the point is, you need to ask a better question

Sorry, I wasn't clear, The hash reference is looking up values that match a column in a text file ($text11) I wanted to know if it was possible to match another column also e.g 14,15,17 etc and if there is a match in any of those columns then the results would be printed as opposed to just having the hash look up the one column ($text11) does that make more sense? Thank you

Yes,

if(
 $f[0] eq $f[1] and 
 $f[0] eq $f[2] and 
 $f[0] eq $f[3] and 
 $f[0] eq $f[4] and 
 $f[0] eq $f[5] 
) {
   ...
}
[download]

Here's my guess:

>perl -wMstrict -le
"use List::MoreUtils qw(any);
 ;;
 my $s = 'B a B b B c B d';
 ;;
 my @text = split /\s+/, $s;
 ;;
 if (any { $text[0] eq $text[ $_ ] } 2, 4, 6, 7) {
   print 'something was eq';
   }
"
something was eq
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