I have a file <FILE1> that contains data like this:

NY,00501,00501
NY,00544,00544
...and so on

It's state abbreviation, zip code range for that state (start, end)

I have another file <FILE2> for each state that contains all the zip codes and cities for that state in this format:

10918|Chester
10919|Circleville
...and so on

What I want to do is read in another file <FILE3> that contains a zip code I want to match with a city. So, the logic is...

Read in zip code from <FILE3>
check against data in <FILE1>
if zip code falls in the range then open the proper state file <FILE2>
match the zip from <FILE3> to the city in <FILE2>
return the zip, city, state

I got this to work with using nested foreach loops but seems slow, especially with a huge list of zips to check. I'm thinking that is not a very optimal way to do this. It was suggested I use a hash of hashes but this newbie got confused ;-)

Any ideas?? Thanks Tim

In reply to How to match zip code to city,state by Anonymous Monk

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