1.hello> 2. #### use strict; use warnings; my $filename = shift or die "Usage $0 FILENAME\n"; open my $fh, '<', $filename or die "Could not open '$filename'\n"; while (my $line = <$fh>) { chomp $line; if ($line =~ /^\d+\..*?(hello).*$/) { print "In $line $1 matches\n"; } else { print "$line doesn't match\n"; } }