#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use Text::Table;
use Tie::IxHash;
use Fcntl qw( :flock );
use List::Util qw( max );
use POSIX qw( strftime );
use Data::Dumper qw( Dumper );
use constant ARGUMENTS => scalar 1;

$| = 1;

my ($value , $table);
my %hash = ();

sub hash_sub {

    foreach my $arg (@_) {

    open ( READ, "<" , $arg )
        or die ("Could not open: ".$arg." - $!\n");

    flock( READ , LOCK_EX )
        or die "Could not lock '".$arg."' - $!\n";

    if (-z "".$arg."") {
        print "File '".$arg."' is empty!\n";
        # -z  File has zero size (is empty).
    }

    my @doc_read = <READ>;

    chomp @doc_read;

    foreach $_ (@doc_read) {
        my @result = split (':', $_);

        if (/^\s*$/) { # /^\s*$/ check for "blank" lines may contain s
+paces or tabs
        next;
        }

        push (@$value , $result[3]);
    }

    $hash{$arg} = $value;
    $value = (); # emptying the string_ref for the next ARGV

    close (READ)
        or die ("Could not close: ".$arg." - $!\n");
    }

    my $max_idx = max map $#$_ , values %hash;
    
    my $tb = Text::Table->new;

    foreach my $i (0 .. $max_idx) {
    $tb->add( $i + 1 . ' ' , map $hash{$_}[$i] , sort keys %hash );
    }
    return $tb;
}

$table = hash_sub(@ARGV);

print $table;
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Text file sample of sample.txt:

Line_1:Line_1_1:Line_1_2:Line_1_3:Line_1_4
Line_2:Line_2_1:Line_2_2:Line_2_3:Line_2_4
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Text file sample of sample_2.txt:

Line_3:Line_3_1:Line_3_2:Line_3_3:Line_3_4
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Text file sample of sample_3.txt:

Line_4:Line_4_1:Line_4_2:Line_4_3:Line_4_4
Line_5:Line_5_1:Line_5_2:Line_6_3:Line_5_4
Line_6:Line_6_1:Line_6_2:Line_6_3:Line_6_4
Line_7:Line_7_1:Line_7_2:Line_7_3:Line_7_4
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The output is as expected:

1  Line_1_3 Line_3_3 Line_4_3
2  Line_2_3          Line_5_3
3                    Line_6_3
4                    Line_7_3
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But in case that I change the input file sequence, for example: sample_2.txt sample_3.txt sample.txt

I would expect to see:

1  Line_3_3 Line_4_3 Line_1_3
2           Line_5_3 Line_2_3
3           Line_6_3
4           Line_7_3
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