That regex would allow --from @something.com to pass and assign ' ' to $name. It would likely be better to use:/^--from\s*([^@\s]+)/ which fails for --from @something.com and could simplify the code further.

while ( <FILE> ) {
    print $1 if /^--from\s*([^@\s]+)/;
}

    or:

print $1 if /^--from\s*([^@\s]+)/ while <FILE>;
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HTH,
Charles K. Clarkson