Hello Anonymous Monk,

Fellow monks have provided you a solution to your problem. But why not use a module like File::Slurper that will do all the work for you in the background and possibly more efficiently also.

Take a look I think it will help you to minimize your errors/problems.

Update: I assume you want also to skip lines that do not have any valuable content, something like that?

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use Data::Dumper;
use feature 'say';
use File::Slurper 'read_lines';
use Scalar::Util qw(looks_like_number);

my @content = read_lines('in.txt');
print Dumper \@content;

my @final;
foreach my $line (@content) {
    $line =~s/\s+/ /g ;
    next if (looks_like_number($line));
    push @final, $line;
}

print Dumper \@final;

__END__

$ perl test.pl
$VAR1 = [
          '19760        Austria    7800    Kingsland    124 Petrie Ter
+race',
          '19762                    ',
          '19764                    ',
          '19765                    ',
          '19767        Austria    7864    Kingsland    1/249 Coronati
+on Drive',
          '19768                    ',
          '19770        Austria    7853    Kingsland    Lawrence:    1
+03 Frasers Rd',
          '19771                    ',
          '19775        Austria    7800    Kingsland    127 Edward Str
+eet',
          '19777                    ',
          '19779                    ',
          '19780        Austria    7963    Kingsland    133 King Stree
+t',
          '19782                    ',
          '19784                    ',
          '19785                    ',
          '19787                    ',
          '19789                    ',
          '19791        Austria    7800    Kingsland    Riverside Cent
+re Level 29 123 Eagle Street',
          '19793                    ',
          '19795                    ',
          '19796                    ',
          '19799                    ',
          '67301                    ',
          '67302                    ',
          '67304        Austria    7810    Kingsland    Argyle Office 
+Suit 9 20 Argyle Street',
          '67306                    ',
          '67308'
        ];
$VAR1 = [
          '19760 Austria 7800 Kingsland 124 Petrie Terrace',
          '19767 Austria 7864 Kingsland 1/249 Coronation Drive',
          '19770 Austria 7853 Kingsland Lawrence: 103 Frasers Rd',
          '19775 Austria 7800 Kingsland 127 Edward Street',
          '19780 Austria 7963 Kingsland 133 King Street',
          '19791 Austria 7800 Kingsland Riverside Centre Level 29 123 
+Eagle Street',
          '67304 Austria 7810 Kingsland Argyle Office Suit 9 20 Argyle
+ Street'
        ];
[download]

Then simply use File::Slurper/write_text($filename,_$content,_$encoding,_$crlf) and put your data into a file instead of my array that I placed in the code for demonstration purposes.

Hope this helps, BR.