Hi, thanks for replying. I've decided to work with strings instead of arrays. Thanks for the advice. However, I can't get your code to work properly.

say for $line1 =~ /[$line2]/g;

it complains...

Bareword "say" not allowed while "strict subs" in use at evan.pl line 
+19.
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when I delete say, it complains...

 
syntax error at evan.pl line 19, near "$line1 =~"
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What's the trick to this sting comparison?

thanks!