note imp For deletion you would use this pattern, sorry: <code> while (my $line = <$pattern_fh>) { chomp $line; # Use quotemeta to allow for items like A[0] push @tokens, quotemeta($line); } my $pattern = '^(?:' . join('|', @tokens) . ')[^a-zA-Z]*$'; print "Search pattern: $pattern\n"; </code> 604526 604564