Pardon! I should have messed up with the dummy text. Actually with real data it works! I learned a lot! Thank you! Now I need to get rid of double rs that are coming from the file 1 (where certain rs are called twice, then I got 3 lines with the same data.) I try to re write a code and then I will ask for help if I can not get out....anyway nice I have learned Data::Dumper too