while (my($name,$n1,$n2)=split(' ',<INFILE>) {
   # do something...
   }
[download]

Prep your file2 by reading the whole thing into an array.

open FILE, "< file2.txt" or die;
my @file2= <FILE>;  # read the whole thing
close (FILE);
[download]

foreach my $hit (grep /^$name\w+/, @file2) {
   my($name_2,$n1_2,$n2_2)=split(' ',$hit); # same as you did before.
   print "Found $hit\n" if $n1 == $n1_2;
   }
[download]

Good luck.

—John

One of the main reasons for Perl's power are it's hashes.

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict; use warnings;
@ARGV >= 2 or die "2 args mandatory";

my ($base,$compare) = @ARGV;
# always use smaller file as 'base':
#UPDATE: this makes only sense if
#    the name field is unique in both files!
#- thanks to [John M. Dlugosz]
## ($base,$compare) = ($compare,$base)
##   if -s $base > -s $compare;

open my $basefh,'<',$base or die "opening '$base' failed: $!";
my %base = ();
while(<$basefh>){chomp;
   my ($name,@columns) = split;
   $base{$name} = \@columns;
}
close $basefh;

open my $cmpfh,'<',$compare or die "opening '$compare' failed: $!";
while(<$cmpfh>){chomp;

   my ($name,@columns) = split;

   next unless exists $base{$name};
   print "$_ [@{$base{$name}}]\n"
     if $base{$name}[0] == $columns[0];
}
close $cmpfh;
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You're assuming the first field is unique. In his example for file2, they were not. That was also the "shorter" one.

true. So if order matters, $base and $compare should not be switched. Anyway the first field must be unique in the $base file then, otherwise it wouldn't make much sense, so the code is still not that wrong. Thanks.

--
http://fruiture.de

sort -o file1 file1
sort -o file2 file2
join file1 file2 | awk '$2 == $4'
[download]

What have your tried? Show us your code.

(Hint: Use a hash. Look it up in your Perl text, it should describe what it is and how it works.)

--t. alex
but my friends call me T.

this is actually not school related....anyways, i tried this:

open(FILE1, "$file1") || die "can't open file";
open(FILE2, "$file2") || die "can't open file";

while (<FILE2>) {
    chomp;
    @array2= split;
    while(<FILE1>) {
        chomp;
        @array1 = split;

    }    if ($array1[0] eq $array2[0]) 
            print "match\n";
            if ($array1[1] == $array[2]) {
               print $array[1];
       }
        else {
            print " no match";
        }
}
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I can see a number of problems with your code ..
• The first time through the FILE2 loop, you'll read all of FILE1 and it will come up empty after that.
• You are reading all of FILE1 for each line of FILE2 -- that's not efficient.
• I would rename your array variables as array1 and array2 (corresponding, of course, to FILE1 and FILE2)
Second to last, I would reformat the code as:

open(FILE1, "$file1") || die "can't open file";
open(FILE2, "$file2") || die "can't open file";

while (<FILE2>)
{
  chomp;
  @array2= split;
  while(<FILE1>)
  {
    chomp;
    @array1 = split;
  }

  if ($array1[0] eq $array2[0]) 
  {
    print "match\n";
    if ($array1[1] == $array[2])
    {
      print $array[1];
    }
    else
    {
      print " no match";
    }
  }
}
[download]

Finally, check out the other good responses to the original question .. your approach should be abandoned.

--t. alex
but my friends call me T.

Also, use strict; use warnings; to catch some of your typos (and declare your variables).

This looks alot like a question from a few days ago. See my response in that thread.

--

There are 10 kinds of people -- those that understand binary, and those that don't.