I am trying to match a variable in a fixed width file with regex, I would like to return the matched record into an array for further processing. here is what I am trying (it returns nothing)

sub get_domkey{                                                       
+          
while(<>){                                                            
+          
if (/\*([^*]+)\*/) {                                                  
+          
$key=$1;                                                              
+          
print "$key\n";                                                       
+          
&get_domcf;                                                           
+          
                }                                                     
+          
        }                                                             
+          
}                                                                     
+          
sub get_domcf{                                                        
+          
open DOM_CF, '/u/ds2/r61/domcf.dat' or die "Can't open DOM control fil
+e because 
$!\n";                                                                
+          
while (<DOM_CF>){                                                     
+          
if (/\$key/){                                                         
+          
@dom_opts=$1;                                                         
+          
                }                                                     
+          
        }                                                             
+          
}
[download]

The sub get_domkey is grabbing the key and printing, when I try to use it to grab the record in sub get_domcf it returns nothing, I have tried several different regexs but have had no luck in getting any to pass the record to @dom_opts, any help would be greatly appreciated :) -Aseidas