I need to keep that ampersand in there. If I change it to 'and' the item will not go into QuickBooks because the customer name I would be supplying is different from the one in QuickBooks.

Besides, this isn't the case, because the ampersand comes out as & in the XML and QB slurps that up (as it always has) just fine.

I really do appreciate your effort, though

Ok sorry, I saw the previous reply too late
I'm looking at the difference between the first and second cases. In the first case this code

my @data = <DATA>;

foreach my $line (@data) {
    my ($customer, $service, $duration, $date) = split(/,/, $line);
    print "$customer:$service:$duration:$date:\n";
}
__DATA__
Cahoots Sports Bar & Grill,AP,PT00H01M,2003-01-01
Cahoots Sports Bar & Grill,AP,PT00H01M,2003-01-01
Cahoots Sports Bar & Grill,AR,PT00H01M,2003-01-01
[download]


shows the $date field has a \n on it.
Not sure if this is significant but worth a look
poj

/me smacks herself in the head

And this is why we shouldn't re-invent the wheel :)

That doesn't seem to be the problem, because the first program is the one that's working (despite the \n). Interesting though that the \n gets lost when the XML is generated.

Good catch!