my %h;
@h{@data2} = ();
delete @h{@data};
my @ids = keys %h;
[download]

{
    my %data;
    @data{@data} = 1;  # turn @data into a lookup hash
    foreach ( @data2 ) {
        print "This $_ was not found.\n"
            if not exists $data{$_}
    }
}
[download]

Update: An aside with MeowChow has convinced me that     @data{@data} = undef;  # turn @data into a lookup hash is less misleading. As with the "= 1" form above, only the value for the first key is set, and all remaining values are set to undef. Since we're just using the hash as a way to trade time for space in detecting the presense of keys, values don't matter. But the originally was slightly misleading nonetheless.

Replacing the hash slice assignment with the following:

undef @data{@data};
[download]

is considerably faster, though somewhat obscure. Also, your slice assignment doesn't do quite what you mean it to do (it sets only the first key's value to 1, and the rest to undef).

   MeowChow                                   
               s aamecha.s a..a\u$&owag.print

Okay, question...@data has three variables $id, $name, $ref and @data2 has 5 variables $id, $name, $ref, $type, $owner.



{
    my %data;
    undef @data{@data};
    foreach ( @data2 ) {
        print "This $_ was not found.\n"
            if not exists $data{$_}
    }
}
[download]


This code is matching all 5 variables in @data2 to all 3 variables in @data, thus returning every row in @data2. For a test I took out all but 1 variable from each row in each array and it returned the results I needed. How can I use this code to handle multiple variables or values? And what if I wanted to lookup $name instead of $id.

Thanks!

I think you misundertand the relationship between variables and arrays. Arrays hold values; they do not hold variables.

Consider:

  my $id = 47;
  my @data = ( $id );
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@data now holds the value 47, and knows nothing whatsoever about where that value came from.

The script you've asked for (and gotten) mere tells which values appear in one array and not the other.

use strict;

# this simply gives us some sample data, just like
# you would have gotten from doing @data = <FILE>
my @data = split $/, <<EOF;
1,comp1,type1
2,comp2,type2
3,comp3,type3
EOF
my @data2 = split $/, <<EOF;
1,comp1,type1,doc1,ref1
2,comp2,type2,doc2,ref2
3,comp3,type3,doc3,ref3
4,comp4,type4,doc4,ref4
5,comp5,type5,doc5,ref5
EOF
# end of sample-data

# figure out how many columns there are in @data
my $num_cols = () = $data[0] =~ /,/g;

# create hash-keys based on the number of columns
my %d2keys;
$d2keys{join ',', (split /,/)[0..$num_cols]} = $_ for @data2;

# delete duplicates
delete @d2keys{@data};

# and we're left with the ones that differ...
my @diff = values %d2keys;

# proof that it worked :)
print $_,$/ for @diff;
[download]

   MeowChow                                   
               s aamecha.s a..a\u$&owag.print