use warnings; use strict; my $names = 'names.txt'; my ( $found, $name ); print 'Enter a name: '; chomp( my $input = ); open my $fh, '<', $names or die "Cannot open $names: $!\n"; while ( $name = <$fh> ) { chomp $name; if ( $input eq $name ) { $found++; last; } } close $fh; if ($found) { print qq{The name "$input" was found.\n}; } else { print qq{The name "$input" was not found.\n}; }