Here's what I'm doing now: 
    my %hash_one = ('string_one' => 0,
                        'string_two' => 0,
                        'string_three' => 0,
                        'string_four' => 0,
                        'string_five' => 0,
                        'string_six' => 0,
                        'string_seven' => 0)
    foreach $i(keys %hash_one){
        $hash_one{$i} = `grep -c '$hash_one{$i}' file.txt`;
    }

[download]
What I want to do is get rid of the loop and grep the file for each string all at once and have the values dumped into the right part of the hash.
There are >50 things I'm looking for and the file is about 100Mb.
I understand that using fork() may be my solution, and I've looked into it but I'm afraid I'm just not getting it.
Any help would be greatly appreciated
Thanks
John
ps. I don't need to have it in a hash, I just need to be able to hook up the right string to the right count later.

In reply to some forking help by JohnATmbd

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