$tag =~ m/<!--..? -->/;

$page = join "", @prep; # since the lines are in an array
if (my ($tag) = $page =~ m/<!--(.+) -->/) {
    # call the appropriate sub based on the tag
    if ($tag eq 'a') {
        suba; exit;
    } elsif ($tag eq 'b') {
        subb; exit;
    } # ...etc...
}
[download]

my $subs = {
    a => \&suba,
    b => \&subb,
    # etc.
}

if ($subs->{$tag}) {
    $subs->{$tag}->();
} else {
    warn "Unknown tag <$tag> in file <$prepage>\n";
}
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Also, I would not read the whole file at once, but instead:

my $tag;
while (<PAGE>) {
    if (m/<!--(.+) -->/) {
        $tag = $1;
        last; # assuming there is only one tag in each file
    }
}
close <PAGE>;
# proceed to call the tag handler
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So basically, when you encounter a special comment tag in your html file, you jump to a subroutine, eh? Sounds kinda bizarre, but anyway...

   sub foo
   {
      # ....initialization stuff...., blah blah

      while( my $line = <SOURCE> ) {
         if( $line =~ /<!--a -->/ ) { # could do index(), if looking f
+or exact match like this
            sub_a();
            last;
         } elsif( $line =~ /<!--b -->/ ) { # ditto
            sub_b();
            last;
         }
      }
   }
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Thanks very much for your reply. I've been trying to apply your solution to my script though without success. I turned it into a standalone script but it still keeps failing and I can't track down the reason why (I've checked for syntax errors etc and it comes out ok) so I'm obviously off base with mu application still. What I have is:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use CGI::Carp qw(fatalsToBrowser warningsToBrowser);
use CGI ':standard';

$prepage = "/path/to/page";



print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
#open file:
open (PAGE, "$prepage") || die "Couldn't get prepage ched";
@prep=<PAGE>;

while( my $line = <PAGE> ) {
         if( $line =~ /<!--a -->/ ) {
# could do index(), if looking for exact match like this
            suba();
            last;
         } elsif( $line =~ /<!--b -->/ ) { # ditto
            subb();
            last;
         }

   }

close (PAGE);



sub suba{
print "suba says hi!";
}

sub subb{
print "subb says hi!";
}
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So what am I doing wrong now?!!

In the first line after your open, you do @prep=<PAGE>;. This reads your whole file into the array @perp. You then completely ignore this array and attempt to process the file line by line with while( my $line = <PAGE> ) { but you have already read the whole file, so there is nothing left to read. Try commenting out (or simply deleting) that first line after the open and see what difference that makes.

open (PAGE, "$prepage") || die "Couldn't get prepage ched";
@prep=<PAGE>;  # <<<< Why????

while( my $line = <PAGE> ) {
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---

Cor! Like yer ring! ... HALO dammit! ... 'Ave it yer way! Hal-lo, Mister la-de-da. ... Like yer ring!

You have neglected to loop through @prep to actually check the file's content. You will need to modify your $tag binding and comparison to an assignment in list context.

I don't see exactly what you're doing with this, but would one of the Template modules help?

After Compline,
Zaxo