I have the following script segment:

open PAGE, "$data_reg" or die "Can't open $data_reg: $!";

while (my $line = <PAGE>) {
    ($username_db,$password_db,$email_address_db,$name_db,$spare) = sp
+lit "\t",$line;
    if ($username eq $username_db) {
    $check++;
    }    else {
            $problem = "Unfortunately we cannot find reference to the 
+username supplied.<br>
            Please check with the webmaster of this site.";
            print "$problem";
            exit;

    }
}
close PAGE;
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This seemes always to fail ar the first pass and does not check the rest of the lines.

I can get round this by taking the 'else' statement out and doing (after close PAGE):

if ($check){
   #do something;
}   else {
   $problem etc.
}
[download]

But I don't want to!

can someone tell me why the original fails to lookup the whole file?