I don't quite follow how you track which array to read from next (yet), but godamn it's fast.

The following times yours, Limbic~Region's and mine. The data is 1 .. $N (minus anything with a 9 to stop it being a single contiguous sequence), randomly distributed across 4 arrays. The only tweaks I've made are to accumulate the results into an array rather than printing them out. 

c:\test>588553-buk -N=100000
1 trial of Four arrays and a total of 100000 (1.756s total)

Found 6561 runs
c:\test>588553-lr -N=100000
1 trial of Four arrays and a total of 100000 (1.164s total)

Found 6561 runs
c:\test>588553-tye -N=100000
1 trial of Four arrays and a total of 100000 (507.209ms total)

Found 6561 runs

[download]

By way of comparison, I also tested one of the 'sort them all together' solutions (grinder's, with apologies to the other contributors!) against yours, though I had to drop $N to stop it from blowing the memory: 

c:\test>588553-gdr -N=10000
1 trial of Four arrays and a total of 10000 (4.491s total)

Found 729 runs
c:\test>588553-tye -N=10000
1 trial of Four arrays and a total of 10000 (55.570ms total)

Found 729 runs

[download]
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In reply to Re^2: Searching parallel arrays. (just merge) by BrowserUk
in thread Searching parallel arrays. by BrowserUk

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