in reply to New to perl and regex

Welcome to the Monastery !

You have other problems with unmatched "[" and the strange "$" as a regex modifier.

I have fixed that - and modified your target selelection slightly by adding a trailing "$".

use strict; use warnings; print "Enter a string: "; while(<>) { my $line = $_; last if ($_ =~ /^\s*[Q|q]{1,1}[U|u]{1,1}[I|i]{1,1}[T|t]{1,1}\s*$/); #Easier to match /quit/i next if ($_ =~ /^$/ or $_ =~ /^\s+$/); if($line =~ /\s*([a-zA-Z]+\s*)+\s*(-?\d\d?)\s*$/) { print $_; } }
Now - if you supply a string of "this that other 555" it will NOT match, because it matches 2 digits, but fails on the trailing "$" in the regex.

             "By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest."           -Confucius