perlquestion fiddler42 Kind Folk,<p> <p> I have a list of c. 5,000 files that I need to collapse into the smallest possible list of files with wildcards. For example, say I have some files named:-<p> <code> abcpwbln08 abcpwbln07 abcpwbnn10 abcpwbnn06 adesicln09 adesicln08 adesicln01 adesicnn05 </code> ...and I need to reduce them to:-<p> <code> abcpwbln0* abcpwbnn* adesicln0* adesicnn05 </code> Any suggestions on how to do this as efficiently as possible in perl? The routine will start off by just reading in the contents of a user-specified unix directory. The names will be very similar to what's referenced above.<p> <p> Thanks,<p> -fiddler42