Hi, jemswira!

This is no bother at all!

You mentioned that the following captured a key that wasn't in the final set:

next unless /(E7F888)\s+.+=([^\s]+)/;
 push @activline, "$1 | $2 | $activ{$1} \n" if $activ{$1};

print @activline;
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Try the following:

next unless /(E7F888)\s+.+=([^\s]+)/;
say;
exit;
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saywill print the scalar $_ which the regex operates on. By doing this, you can examine the line to verify that the matches the following regex:

/(.{6})\s+.+=([^\s]+)/
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Also, it may be that the 'key' is not being captured from $activin, since:

push @activline, "$1 | $2 | $activ{$1} \n" if $activ{$1};
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will work only if the 'key' if found in both files and the regexs which process both work as they should.

Let me know what you find...