This is the ideal application for a hash tied to a file. You might like to take a look at DBM::Deep. This is a well-tested and well-liked implementation of a disk based hash.

Just use a script to generate your hash once (that will take a while), after that any search will be nearly as fast as a single disk access. Store multiple values either concatenated as a string or better use an array for that. Since DBM::Deep is multilevel, storing a HashofArrays is no further problem

In reply to Re^3: search a large text file by jethro
in thread search a large text file by perl_lover_always

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