my @attributes = qw(first second third); attrib_type(); sub attrib_type { foreach $value (@attributes){ print "Is $value an attribute (y or n)? "; $response = ; chomp($response); if ($response =~ "y" || $response =~ "Y"){ print "response is $response\n"; print "configure as an attribute\n"; } else { print "response is $response\n"; print "configure as a parser\n"; } } }