jdporter, thanks. I knew there was a reason for entering the monastery,and the replies I have received to my query have been interesting and educating.

I like this last solution where instead of going through the entire data on the second pass, we only look at known duplicates.

Having worked with perl for the last weeks has been somewhat of a revelation to me. it is amazing how much real work can be accomplished with a few lines of carefully chosen code.

In reply to Re^4: I sense there is a simpler way... by HelgeG
in thread I sense there is a simpler way... by HelgeG

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