Thank you. I already posted the data inputfile.

name1##Thu Oct 18 14:33:23 2007  ## 2007-10-18 14:33:23.000000000-0400
name2##Thu Feb  5 01:13:19 2009  ##2009-02-05 01:13:19.000000000-0500
name3##Sat Jan 24 10:03:37 2009  ##2009-01-24 10:03:37.000000000-0500
name8##Thu Feb  5 01:13:19 2009    ##2007-03-05 01:13:19.000000000-050
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(... 1000s of similar entries)
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I never tried perlmonks before. Sorry for not using proper tag. In regards to your other question, data format in field2 is different than field3. If these two times are of epoch timeformat, I can compare the strings myself. Because they use different format in field 2 and 3, I don't know how to compare them myself. My perl code may not help here as it was collecting field2 and field3 from two different file for the names in field1.

Thanks pad