Below is snippet what I have tried so far

# this is called in foreach loop and stores returns the file in array for elem and item.

# This is the pattern which I look for in elem.txt if @myarr = "ELEM-3"

With above piece of code If condition gives me only lines for ELEM-3 and lines which has pattern stored in @intend_elem.

Else condition gives me all lines for Item & Elem files.

So far - if @myarr contains only ELEM-3 I have my result else I have results for all.

Hi,

Does this give you any ideas? Questions?

itemElemIt( '...items.txt', '...elem.txt', \@myarr );
sub itemElemenIt {
   my( $itemfile, $elemfile, $myarr ) = @_;
   for my $lookFor ( @$myarr ){
       ... 
       lookIn( $itemfile, $lookFor );
   }
}
sub lookIn {
    my( $file, $keyword ) = @_;
    my @ret;
    while(<$fh>){
        push @ret, $_ if /\Q$keyword\E/;
    }
    return @ret;
}
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