Array of arrays is probably the best data structure. The trick in using it is to pull elements off the front of each nested array to get the output data as you need it:

#use strict; use warnings; my $File1 = <<FILE; 13 34 32 20 43 FILE my $File2 = <<FILE; 22 15 27 33 48 65 34 FILE my $File3 = <<FILE; 18 20 22 45 44 32 12 26 FILE my @data; for my $file (\$File1, \$File2, \$File3) { open my $fIn, '<', $file or die "Can't open $file: $!\n"; push @data, []; while (<$fIn>) { chomp; push @{$data[-1]}, $_; } } while (grep {@$_} @data) { printf "%s\n", join "\t", map {$_ // ''} map {shift @$_} @data; }

Prints:

13 22 18 34 15 20 32 27 22 20 33 45 43 48 44 65 32 34 12 26
Premature optimization is the root of all job security

In reply to Re: create array of arrays from multiple files by GrandFather
in thread create array of arrays from multiple files by Anonymous Monk

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