thanks for that code I was able to fix my formatting and space issues so the appended file is the same field widths. I am still not getting the fields to match up. 

ACFX  28523  L           05/18/13  ABCCO        
ACFX  28523  L  05/01/13           ABCCO-C      
ACFX  28526  L           05/28/13  ABCCO        
ACFX  28526  L  05/01/13           ABCCO-C      
ACFX  44866  L           05/28/13  ABCCO        
ACFX  44866  L  05/01/13           ABCCO-C      
ADMX  49266  L  05/03/13 05/16/13  PFGCO           
ADMX  63770  L  05/12/13 05/21/13  PFGCO           
ADMX  63975  L  05/12/13 05/30/13  PFGCO

[download]
the first and second row need to match (they do perfectly without the 
+-C) need them to look like:
ACFX  44866  L  05/01/13 05/28/13  ABCCO-C

[download]

I made sure file1 and file2 are both the same column widths, so now i just think the issue is with the company names not being exact...thanks

In reply to Re^4: issue with output of file matching by rruser
in thread issue with output of file matching by rruser

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.