use strict;
use warnings;

#^^ for personal use to see where I've messed up



open (FH,$ARGV[0]) || print "could not open file" ;
my $info = <FH>;

# ^^This opens whatever file is associates with the program
 #                    i.e - perl thisassignment documenthechooses
# that file is placed into $info after it's read

while ($info=~ /(\w+ (-?\d+ )+)/)
{
        my $info =~ s/(\w+ (-?\d+ )+)//;
}


# Identifies the pattern in file. Identifies one or more words (\w+), 
+one or more #numbers(\d+),, also searches for new lines (-?) . my pro
+fessor gave us this #pattern code so I might be totally wrong. I'm no
+t very good with pattern yet..


my @nums = split(/:/,$info);

#takes out colon where ever it may be in the $info scalar, @nums is a 
+array with #those values 

my $word = shift (@nums);

# shifts first word 

my $sum = 0;

# $sum is a empty scalar 

my $var = ($info);

# i think $var is supposed to contain the numbers from $info 


foreach $var (@nums)
{
    $sum = $sum + $var;
}

#this is to add the numbers together. Sum is empty, so with every new 
+number #that occurs it goes into sum and adds to whatever number is i
+n var. i hope I'm #explaining that right.

my %hash = ($word => $sum);

#the new sum goes into the hash as a key and the color is in the list,
+ thats how #they associate with each other..  


print @nums;
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I can't begin to express how much I appreciate your response. Thank you so much, that was SUPER helpful. When you said

"So do you think the program should stop or keep going if the file can't be opened? Maybe try open second ARGument ?"

did you mean an "while" loop or a if/or statement? or another ARGV?

What does this line do  my $info =~ s/(\w+ (-?\d+ )+)//;

uhm.. its a substitution operator.. for letters and words as well.. so while $info has words and number it substitutes for something.. not sure what though... sorry.