Hello
Swizzlestix617 and welcome to the monastery,
Follow the wise advice to read other's working code to learn from the beginning a perlish Perl, an idiomatic one. Consider to read a quite old but very usefull book:
Perl Cookbook
The cookbook approach was the best i found during my first years with Perl.
HtH
L*
There are no rules, there are no thumbs..
Reinvent the wheel, then learn The Wheel; may be one day you reinvent one of THE WHEELS.