sub findtext
{
    my ($fileargs, $inputs) = @_; # pass references to arrays
    my @filenames;
    for my $arg ( @$fileargs ) {  # dereference this array
        push @filenames, grep /\w/, split( /\W+/, $arg );
    }
    for my $file ( @filenames ) {
        unless open( FILE, "/home/jroberts/$file.txt" ) {
            warn "open failed on $file: $!";
            next;
        }
        while (<FILE>) {
            for my $term ( @$inputs ) { # dereference this array
                next unless ( /\b$term\b/ );
                # get here when there's a match...
                # (not sure what you want to do here)
            }
        }
    }
}