Join Two Tables using Perl

[mikawin]

Hello,

I have two tables of 70*10^3 and 800*10^3 rows each. I want to get data corresponding to the columns 1, 2 and 3 of the first table from the second table.

Sample Data:

Table 1
1 PQRS STUV
2 ABCD EFGH
3 HIJK LMNOP

Table 2
1 PQRS STUV 987 654 321
2 ABCD EFGH 1275 1375 76
3 HIJK LMNOP 654 321 98
....
....

Presently, I am doing it by putting each of the tables' rows in arrays and comparing and getting what I want, but find it rather tedious. Can someone suggest a better/more efficient way?

Thanks,
Mika

 

[Annihilannic]

Assuming you have sufficient memory to hold it, load table 2 into a hash using the first three fields as a key (you can either concatenate them using a safe delimiter, i.e. $table2{$field1,$field2,$field3), or use a hash of a hash of a hash, i.e. $table2{$field1}{$field2}{$field3}), and then simply print out the matching values when you process table 1.

Annihilannic.