A hash seems ideal here. But since the OP is worried about space, I was going to suggest a tied hash of some kind. After looking at this thread, however, I'm more inclined to agree with roboticus and suggest that if you really have a size issue with your data, that you try putting it into a database (MySQL, Postgres, etc).

In reply to Re: Multi line matching by dwm042
in thread Multi line matching by imrags

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