Databases tend to support (limited) regex these days. So, perl is better, but databases are not out of the picture.

Anyway, the OP says:

All this points to many tables (one per plant) with fields (spreadsheet), at the very least, id in one and the rest in another. Matching those ids to each other can be done either through a manual list, or other provided information such as by matching addresses. This can be very easy for a database to do. He should use the best tool for the situation. Perl is the best tool when it comes to text manipulation, any in many, many other cases. Though, a database might be better in this particular case.

In reply to Re^4: Acknowlededment of Contributions by chacham
in thread Acknowledgement of Contributions by jmlynesjr

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