Still testing (now after finding my kennword at last ...).

Your pattern works fine, it was my paw marks yesterday, not the ones of your cat.

I noted however that some lines are not matched - and the matter seem to be utf8 signs in the text after the item ID. How this could matter in this script - I do not understand yet. But if I delete these signs in the DATA snippet, the lines are matched then.

Since I am really a novice in perl I just made a workaround - loaded the file into the MS Word, substituted the signs and saved as a txt again. It ran ok then.

I am still testing because this is a really big file with many thousands table IDs and resp. a lot of items-ID.

Many thanks! VE