Try modifying the regex to

Yes that did the trick, thanks again poj. Just noticed that this block of code works only if searching for one computer:

# result
if ($count){
  print "$count matches\n";
} else {
  print "No matches found\n";
[download]

It doesn't work when searching for a list of computers. If some of the computers are found the one(s) not found "No matches found" is not returned. Is there a way to print "$name - no matches found\n"; In the following block of code? Maybe something like this?

# search text file
open IN, '<',$file or die "Could not open $file : $!";
while (my $line = <IN>){
  # repeat line search for each computer
  foreach my $search (@computers) {
    if ( my ($name) = $line =~ /($search[\.\w]*)/ ){
      print "Name ; $name\n";
      ++$count;
    } else 
    if ( my ($name) = $line =~ /($search[-eq " "]*)/ ){
     print "$name -- No matches found\n";
  }
 }
}
[download]

-Tony

Change the array @computers to a hash %computers. It is slightly more complicated as I have made %computers a HashOFArrays to allow for 1 search term to match more than 1 name.

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;

my $count = 0;
my $namefile = $ARGV[0] || 'names.txt'; # default if no argument
# names.txt
#ServerName1
#ServerName2

# get list of computers to search for
my %computers;
open FILE,'<',$namefile or die "Could not open $namefile : $!";
while (<FILE>){
  chomp;
  s/^\s+|\s+$//g; # trim spaces
  next unless /\S/; # skip blank lines
  $computers{$_} = []; # array to hold search results
}
close FILE; 

my $file = "computernames.txt";
# computernames.txt
#<Answer type="string">ServerName1.FD.net.org</Answer>
#<Answer type="string">ServerName2.FD.net.org</Answer>
#<Answer type="string">ServerName3.FD.net.org</Answer>
#<Answer type="string">ServerName3a.FD.net.org</Answer>

# search text file
open IN, '<',$file or die "Could not open $file : $!";
while (my $line = <IN>){
  # repeat line search for each computer
  foreach my $search (keys %computers) {
    if ( my ($name) = $line =~ />(.*$search[^<]*)/ ){
      printf "Match '%-20s => %s\n",$search,$name;
      push @{$computers{$search}},$name; # store match
    } 
  }
}
close IN;

# result
print "\nNo matches found for :\n";
for my $search (sort keys %computers){
  print "$search\n" if @{$computers{$search}} == 0;
}

print "\nMatches found for :\n";
for my $search (sort keys %computers){
  for my $name (@{$computers{$search}}){
    printf "Match %-20s => %s\n",$search,$name;
  }
}
[download]

poj