use strict; use warnings; sub GetDecUser { my $LFILE; my $LOGFILE12 = $0; my @arr12 = ('The','quick','brown','declared users'); my @arr10 = qw(The quick brown fox); if (-e $LOGFILE12) { $LFILE = \@arr12; # if the 12 log exists, use it } else { $LFILE = \@arr10; } print "$LFILE\n"; for my $dec (@$LFILE) { if ($dec =~ /declared users/) # match this { print "TESTING we found it: $dec\n"; } } } GetDecUser();