use Data::Dumper; use Search::Dict::Object; my $d = Search::Dict::Object->new( file => "/tmp/dict.txt", keyval_xfrm => sub { split /\t/ }, comp => sub { $_[0] cmp $_[1] }, # should correspond to file sort order ); print Dumper { aaa => $d->get('aaa'), foo => $d->get('foo'), bar => $d->get('bar'), baz => $d->get('baz'), zzz => $d->get('zzz'), }; __END__ $VAR1 = { 'bar' => '789', 'baz' => '456', 'aaa' => undef, 'foo' => '123', 'zzz' => undef };