You may want to look into Spreadsheet::ParseExcel. It'd go something like this (this is very untested; it's meant only to give you a very rough idea of what to do): 

use Spreadsheet::ParseExcel;
my $a_wks = Spreadsheet::ParseExcel->new->Parse('a.xls')->{ Worksheet 
+}[ 0 ];
my $b_wks = Spreadsheet::ParseExcel->new->Parse('b.xls')->{ Worksheet 
+}[ 0 ];

my @re =
  map { my $re = $b_wks->Cell( $_, $b_wks->{ MinCol } )->Val; qr/\Q$re
+/ }
      $b_wks->{ MinRow }..$b_wks->{ MaxRow };

for my $i ( $a_wks->{ MinRow } .. $a_wks{ MaxRow } ) {
  my $string = $a_wks->Cell( $i, $a_wks->{ MinCol } )->Val;
  for my $re ( @re ) {
    if ( $string =~ /$re/ ) {
      do_the_i_found_it_dance();
      last;
    }
  }
}

[download]
You may also find this article useful.

the lowliest monk

In reply to Re: compare two Excel spreadsheets by tlm
in thread compare two Excel spreadsheets by juergenkemeter

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