cat lill01.txt camel 42 pearl 94 dromedary 69 cat lill02.txt camel 8 hello 12345 dromedary 1 perl 94 perl -lane "$r{$F[0]}+=$F[1]}{print qq($_\t$r{$_})for sort{$r{$b}<=>$r{$a}||$a cmp $b}keys %r" lill01.txt lill02.txt # or shortened by one char because perl -a implies -n perl -lae "$r{$F[0]}+=$F[1]}{print qq($_\t$r{$_})for sort{$r{$b}<=>$r{$a}||$a cmp $b}keys %r" lill01.txt lill02.txt hello 12345 pearl 94 perl 94 dromedary 70 camel 50