c:\@Work\Perl\monks>perl -wMstrict -le "my ($x, $y, $z) = qw(TTTATTT TTTTTTT TBTTTTT); ;; for my $ar ([ $x, $y ], [ $x, $z ], [ $y, $z ], ) { my ($p, $q) = @$ar; my $d = $p ^ $q; my @offsets; push @offsets, $+[0]-1 while $d =~ m{ \G \x00* [^\x00] }xmsg; print $p; print $q; if (@offsets) { printf qq{diff(s) at offset(s) %s \n}, join q{, }, @offsets; } else { print qq{no diffs \n}; } } " TTTATTT TTTTTTT diff(s) at offset(s) 3 TTTATTT TBTTTTT diff(s) at offset(s) 1, 3 TTTTTTT TBTTTTT diff(s) at offset(s) 1