there are more than one ways to do it...

1. Call the programm with a parameterlist where the last is the filename you are looking for and remove this name before starting find with my $filename = pop(@ARGV); and then compare each found filename with $filename

2. Use named parameters, e.g. with the Getopt::* - modules (e.g Getopt::Long) 3. Use named parameters and care for them by yourself, e.g.

scriptname.pl --dir="/dir1/sdir1" --dir="/dir2/sdir2" --file="thisfile
+.txt"
[download]

my $params = &GetParameters();
my @dirs = @{ $params->{dir} };
my @file = @{ $params->{file} };
# and so on

sub GetParameters {
  my @allowedParams = qw(file dir);
  die &PrintUsage() unless @ARGV;
  my $params = {}; # shell contain parameters

  foreach (@ARGV){
    my ($key, $val) = split(/\=/, $_, 2); # split up by the first =
 
    # test if $key is a valid parameter
    unless ($key =~ s/^\-\-//) { # must start with --
        die "Error: invalid param $key\n";
    }
    unless ( grep {lc($key) eq lc($_)} @allowedParams){
        die "Error: param $key not allowed\n";
    }
       
    # maybe do some checks if $val is existing
    ....
    # add param to hashreference $params
    push (@{ $params->{$key} }, $val);

  } # for
  return ($params);
} # GetParameters
[download]

Btw: i think programming with use strict; and use warnings; might be a very good idea, because it is much easier to find "silly" and "not-so-silly" errors that way

Best regards,
perl -le "s==*F=e=>y~\*martinF~stronat~=>s~[^\w]~~g=>chop,print"

Ran the script as mentioned and seem to get errors about around the &PrintUsage area. I tried using just die "print error\n" and still getting errors. Please advise on how I can get this to work?

You would, of course, have to implement the PrintUsage subroutine. Adding something like this to the top should do the trick:

sub PrintUsage{
print <<USAGE
  This is where you would type the error message
 that you want displayed if someone passes arguments
 to your script that you haven't specified, or if
 the syntax is wrong, etc.  
USAGE
;
}
[download]

You didn't ask for a code review, but I can't stop myself from making a few observations.

finddepth Is not a reserved word, you must include it in the list, so it can be exported to your package. That way, you can use just "finddepth" instead of "File::Find::finddepth", without also importing find().

Your code has no indentation. Indents make code a lot easier to read. If you want people to help with your code, it's generally a good idea to make sure they can read it :)

You have an awful lot of ALLCAPS words, which can be quite annoying.

A sub in an if's else block in another sub isn't going to make reading or maintaining the code any easier.

The script has some small problems, but it's a nice obfuscation.

U28geW91IGNhbiBhbGwgcm90MTMgY
W5kIHBhY2soKS4gQnV0IGRvIHlvdS
ByZWNvZ25pc2UgQmFzZTY0IHdoZW4
geW91IHNlZSBpdD8gIC0tIEp1ZXJk

#!perl -w
use strict;

my $params = &GetParameters();
my @dirs = @{ $params->{dir} };
my @file = @{ $params->{file} };
print "\nDIRS:\n\t";
print join("\n\t", @dirs);
print "\nFILES:\n\t";
print join("\n\t", @file);
# and so on

sub GetParameters {
  my @allowedParams = qw(file dir);
  die &PrintUsage() unless @ARGV;
  my $params = {}; # shell contain parameters

  foreach (@ARGV){
    my ($key, $val) = split(/\=/, $_, 2); # split up by the first =
 
    # test if $key is a valid parameter
    unless ($key =~ s/^\-\-//) { # must start with --
        die &PrintUsage( "Error: invalid param --$key");
    }
    unless ( grep {lc($key) eq lc($_)} @allowedParams){
        die "Error: param $key not allowed\n";
    }
       
    # maybe do some checks if $val is existing
#    ....
    # add param to hashreference $params
    push (@{ $params->{$key} }, $val);

  } # for
  return ($params);
} # GetParameters

# Added &PrintUsage; thx to [mull]

sub PrintUsage{
    my $msg = shift || '';
    return (<<USAGE);
$msg:

$0 --dir=/dir1/sdir2 --dir=/dir2/sdir2 --file=README.txt
USAGE
    ;
}
[download]

C:\TEMP\test>testParameters.pl --dir=/dir1/sdir2 --dir=/dir2/sdir2 --f
+ile=README.txt

DIRS:
        /dir1/sdir2
        /dir2/sdir2
FILES:
        README.txt
C:\TEMP\test>
[download]

Best regards,
perl -le "s==*F=e=>y~\*martinF~stronat~=>s~[^\w]~~g=>chop,print"