Hi all,

Given an input file that has the following records:

123    ABC    XX112    YYYY    Zzzzzzzzzz
123    DEF    XX113    WWWW    Zzzzzzzzz
123    EEF    XX112    YYYY     Zzzzzzzzzz
444    ccc    vvbfd    QQQQ    ccccccccc
444    CCd    vvbfd    QQQQ    ccccccccc
444    ddd    ssddd    QQQQ    xxxxxxxx

I need to focus on the first column (the input file is already sorted on
that field) and, grouped by the first column, pull out
the first record of that group.
e.g., I would need to have the following from the above as output:

123    ABC    XX112    YYYY    Zzzzzzzzzz
444    ccc    vvbfd    QQQQ    ccccccccc

I believe I'd need something like a hash, where for every record within
a group defined by the common value of the first column, I take the
numerically first occurance of that group, but I don't know how to do
that in Perl.  Would it take a loop for each group within the loop for
the entire file??

Thanks very much,
Paul



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