foreach my $attribute (@data_in_attributes) {
    # validate data attribute type by performing 
    # lookup for the regular expression from the spec memory structure

    if ($attribute =~ m/$spec_all_attributes[$attribute_position][1]/) {
        # Correct data type, the output value is same as input value
        push @data_out_attributes, $attribute;
    } else {
        # Bad data type, use default provided in the spec for output value
        push @data_out_attributes, $spec_all_attributes[$attribute_position][2]; 
        $total_errors++;
        print log_file "Error ", $total_errors,
            ". Data type error on line: ", $line_number, 
            ", attribute: ", $attribute_position + 1,
            " (", $spec_all_attributes[$attribute_position][0], ")\n";
    }

    # terminate if too many errors (<-- but perhaps this is obvious??)
    last DATALINE if ($total_errors >= $max_errors);
    $attribute_position++;
}