Hi Bill, thank you... I was able to get my answer from Stevieb. But I do have another question if you don't mind. for my $find, I want the lines beginning with A or C.

input sample:
A123
A321
B123
B456
C321
C123
C654

output sample:
A123
A321
C321
C123
C654
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Im sure my code is wrong below but that is what I am trying to accomplish, locating the lines beginning with A or C

use strict;

my $find = '^A' OR '^C';

    open (NEW, ">", "output.txt" ) or die "could not open:$!";

    open (FILE, "<", "Report.txt") or die "could not open:$!";

        while (<FILE>) {
        print NEW if (/$find/);
    }
close (FILE);
close (NEW);
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