Perl: find next available lowest number that is available in two arrays

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

Hi there. I have a number allocation problem whereby I have 2 arrays built from 2 different sources. The arrays will just contain a listed of sorted numbers

@a 

1
7
10
14
15
16

@b

1
7
10
11
14
15
16

i need to scan both arrays and find the lowest available number that is available in both arrays that is higher than $min which is set to "10". once it finds the the lowest unused number, it quits and presents it in a variable

So in the case of the two arrays above, the number that would get presented is 12 (as 11 is used in one of the arrays)

I have been trying various things such as setting a counter and looping through the two arrays but have been getting myself in a real pickle of infinate loops and utter mess

I wanted to ask whether anyone could point me in the right direction on the best way to tackle this one?

any advice or guidance would be greatly appreciated

Thanks

2

This is one way, Check out the below example:

my $min        =  10;
my $max        =  999;
my $s          =   0;
my @array1     =  qw/1 7 10 14 15 16/;
my @array2     =  qw/1 7 10 11 14 15 16/;
my @array3     =  ( @array1, @array2 );
my %hash;

@hash{@array3} =  ();

$s  =  ++$min;

while ( $s <= $max ) {
  if ( ! exists $hash{"$s"}) {
    print "Available: $s\n";
    last;
  }
  $s++;
}
3

thanks that is a great starting point, much appreicated :smiley: