That must have been it. I deleted the data.txt file and made a new one and that error did not show up. Now how do I avoid that from happening? Is there a way for the code to ignore the whitespace or any type of null in the data file?

Just add after 'chomp;':

next unless length;
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That’s a good way to bypass blank lines, but it won’t bypass a line containing only spaces, or a line containing “word” characters and/or digits but no colons. In both these cases, there is nothing to split on, so $field[1] is undefined. Rather than trying to test the line to predict whether $field[1] will be defined, a simpler and safer approach is to test for the condition causing the warnings directly:

next unless defined $field[1];
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Hope that helps,

Athanasius <°(((>< contra mundum

Iustus alius egestas vitae, eros Piratica,

Is there a way for the code to ignore the whitespace or any type of null in the data file?

while (<FILE>)
{
  if ($_ =~ /^$/)
  {
    print "it's blank\n";
    next; #process next line
  }
  else
  {
    print "it's NOT blank\n";  
  }
}
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if($_ =~ /^$/) can also be written as if(/^$/)

---

All is well. I learn by answering your questions...

  if ($_ =~ /^$/)
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This code does not detect whitepace (a line of all spaces, for example) as requested.

Perhaps this would work better:

  if ($_ =~ /^\s*$/)
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...also, the next is unnecessary.