If you need @file to contain at least all the elements of @report, then you need to find the simple difference of the two. The simple difference is the (paraphrasing from the Cookbook) "set of members of @report, but not of @file". If this set is empty, then @file contains at least all the elements of @report. So, working with Recipe 4.7:

use strict;

my @report = qw(sqltable mike_test sarak_mike);
my @file   = (@report, qw(plus a little more));

# off by 0
print '@file was off by ' 
   . simple_compare(\@report,\@file)
   . " elements\n";

# still 0, that elem wasn't in @report
pop @file;
print '@file was off by ' 
   . simple_compare(\@report,\@file)
   . " elements\n";

# off by 1, that one was
shift @file;
print '@file was off by ' 
   . simple_compare(\@report,\@file)
   . " elements\n";  

# returns number of elements in A that aren't in B
sub simple_compare {
   my ($A,$B) = @_;

   # build lookup table
   my %seen = map { $_ => 1 } @$B;
   
   # find those in A that aren't in B
   my @aonly;
   foreach my $item (@$A) {
      push @aonly,$item unless ($seen{$item});
   }
   
   return scalar @aonly;
}
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Also note that this could only a be partial solution. What if you needed to compare these two arrays:

my @report = qw(one one two);
my @file   = qw(one two two);
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jeffa

L-LL-L--L-LL-L--L-LL-L--
-R--R-RR-R--R-RR-R--R-RR
F--F--F--F--F--F--F--F--
(the triplet paradiddle)

Thanks for your help. I'm so close, but something is not working. I am trying to debug the following, but it seems that although both the @file contain the @report strings, I am not getting a match. Is it possible when I load the text file into @file array, that the elements are not compared as strings? Frusterating!!!!! The contents of the @file looks like this:
sqltable_mike table loaded successfully with 282873
sarak_mike table loaded successfully with 282873 records
sticks table loaded successfully with 282873 records.
hello table loaded successfully with 282873 records.
All I need it to do is match all @report contents with the internal @file. What am I doing wrong. Your assistance is greatly appreciated. <CODE> use strict;
my @compare=();
my $file='d:\mms_tableload.txt';
my @file="";
open(FILE,"<$file");
@file = <FILE>;
close(FILE);
my @report = qw(sqltable_mike sarak_mike );
my @compare = ( @report, qw (@file ));
# off by 0
print '@file was off by '
. simple_compare(\@report,\@compare)
. " elements\n";
# still 0, that elem wasn't in @report
pop @file;
print '@file was off by '
. simple_compare(\@report,\@compare)
. " elements\n";
# off by 1, that one was
shift @file;
print '@file was off by '
. simple_compare(\@report,\@file)
. " elements\n";
# returns number of elements in A that aren't in B
sub simple_compare {
my ($A,$B) = @_;
# build lookup table
my %seen = map { $_ => 1 } @$B;
# find those in A that aren't in B
my @aonly;
foreach my $item (@$A) {
push @aonly,$item unless ($seen{$item});
}
return scalar @aonly;
}
<CODE>

This is a problem:

@file = ;

# you probably meant
@file = <FILE>;

# and then you need to 
chomp @file;

# to remove trailing new lines
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jeffa