#! perl -slw use strict; my %a=( AA=>'Y', BB=>'Y', CC=>'Y', DD=>'Y', EE=>'Y', FF=>'Y' ); my @a1=('AA','DD','EE'); my @a2=('AA','BB','CC','FF'); my @a = sort keys %a; my %a1; @a1{ @a1 } = (); my %a2; @a2{ @a2 } = (); print join ',', map{ exists $a1{ $_ } ? $_ : '##' } @a; print join ',', map{ exists $a2{ $_ } ? $_ : '##' } @a; __END__ [11:44:17.92] P:\test>413151 AA,##,##,DD,EE,## AA,BB,CC,##,##,FF