*Assuming I understand the question any better or worse than anyone else*

May I ask why you are using a while(<FILE>) loop? It's going to set $_ to one line at a time, so setting an array to $_ isn't going to help you much...

You could try something like this:

my @filelines = <FILE>;   #Read the entire file into an array
my $whichline;            #Declare a variable to hold the line number
for(my $i = 0; $i = $#filelines; $i++){  #Go through the entire array 
+untill you find it or run out of lines
   if($filelines[$i] =~ m/TEXTTOMATCH/o){ #Attempt to match, use compi
+le-once
      $whichline = $i;                    #If match, remember the line
+ and leave the loop.
      last;
   }
}
[download]

Or if you want to find more than one line with that pattern:

my @filelines = <FILE>;   #Read the entire file into an array
my @whichline;            #Declare a variable to hold the line number
for(my $i = 0; $i = $#filelines; $i++){  #Go through the entire array 
+untill you find it or run out of lines
   if($filelines[$i] =~ m/TEXTTOMATCH/o){ #Attempt to match, use compi
+le-once
      push(@whichline,$i); #If match, add to the list of current match
+es
   }
}
#Now you know what lines had TEXTTOMATCH in them
[download]

Once you have the line with that, you can use splice() to remove the line if you wish, or do something else to it...

**Edit: Inserted comments in code and added multiple match**

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"Weird things happen, get used to it."

Flame ~ Lead Programmer: GMS