Thanks for the advice, but I am still having problems. I have attached the code I have thus far written (knowing full well it could probably be more concise) as well as some sample data....If you have nothing better to do, would you mind giving it a once over? Perhaps you can provide some additional suggestions... Thanks again, Travis
#!C:/Perl/bin/perl -w
#use CGI ':standard';
open (UPDATE, "update.txt") or die "Cannot open update.txt";
@data = <UPDATE>;
close (UPDATE);
#SAMPLE DATA FROM THIS ARRAY IS AS FOLLOWS:
#T00001 0123-12345 DD001 67
#T00002 0123-12345 DD001 99
#T00003 0123-12345 DD002 0
#T00008 0123-12346 DD001 76
#T00014 7777-77777 DD001 88
#T00020 0999-99999 DD001 99
open (MDF, "mdfl.txt") or die "Cannot open update.txt";
@data2 = <MDF>;
@data2 = @data2;
close (MDF);
#SAMPLE DATA FROM THIS ARRAY IS AS FOLLOWS:
#T00001 0123-12345 DD001 100 100
#T00002 0123-12345 DD001 100 100
#T00003 0123-12345 DD001 100 100
#T00004 0123-12345 DD001 100 100
#T00007 0123-12345 DD002 100 100
#T00008 0123-12346 DD001 100 100
#T00013 7777-77777 DD002 100 100
#T00014 7777-77777 DD002 100 100
#T00015 7777-77777 DD003 100 100
#T00016 8888-88888 DD001 100 100
#T00019 8888-88888 DD003 100 100
#T00020 9999-99999 DD004 100 100
#I start by reading each line fo the first array, called @data
#I split this line on tabs
foreach $line (@data) {
chomp $line;
@array = split (/\t/, $line);
$dmpiid = $array[0];
$be = $array1;
$osuf = $array2;
$update = $array3;
#Then I read each line from the second array, splitting it on tabs too
foreach $line2 (@data2)
{
chomp $line2;
@array2 = split (/\t/, $line2);
$dmpiid2 = $array2[0];
$be2 = $array21;
$osuf2 = $array22;
$last = $array23;
$curr = $array24;
#next I find where certain values are the same from each array
if (($dmpiid) eq ($dmpiid2)) {
#when found, I update the appropriate values as indicated
$last = $curr;
$curr = $update;
#next, I push the following string back into the @data2 array
$new = "$dmpiid2\t$be2\t$osuf2\t$last\t$curr\n";
push (@data2, $new);
#next I jump out of the inner loop because there's no need to keep checking
last;
#however, once I do that, I need to delete the previous instance of
#the data I just updated, otherwise the array will contain both old and
#new data...this is where I get stuck
} #end if
} #end inner foreach
}# end outer foreach
#this is my test which prints my results. unfortunately, the old data is
present allong with the new data.
foreach $item (@data2) {
print "$item\n";
}