1) Yes, the fact that the error is for a failed pattern match and not a failed 'eq' is doubly confusing. That's one reason I posted to Perlmonks. Check my profile, Rolf. I've been coding perl for 15 years. That's not a "Don't question me, I know what I'm doing" statement. It's an "I've been doing this for 1/3 of my life. Why is this simple thing suddenly so hard?" statement.

2) I'm sure I'm debugging the right file because when I add or remove lines from the file the line numbers in the output change. Moreover, if I change the text around the offending code those changes are reflected in the output.

3) I'm using perl v5.8.8 built for x86_64-linux-thread-multi.

I added a couple of extra checks and the results do point me in a direction. When I assign a string value to $oldString and test it with an eq (lines 80 - 89), no problem. If I assign the value with a call to $oldString = $allChanges->[$k]->getOldString(); the problem manifests. That's even more curious, because the call to print Dumper($oldString); at line 95 prints a simple string. 

 80     local $oldString = "OLDSTRING";
 81     local $newString = "NEWSTRING";
 82     $logger->debug("oldString = (", $oldString, ")");
 83     $logger->debug("newString = (", $newString, ")");
 84     if ($oldString eq "OLDSTRING") {
 85         $logger->info("$oldString = $oldString");
 86     }
 87     else {
 88         $logger->info("No. $oldString != oldString");
 89     }
 90
 91     $oldString = $allChanges->[$k]->getOldString();
 92     $newString = $allChanges->[$k]->getNewString();
 93     $logger->debug("oldString = (", $oldString, ")");
 94     $logger->debug("newString = (", $newString, ")");
 95     print Dumper($oldString);
 96     sleep 1;
 97
 98     if ($oldString eq "Automated") {
 99         $logger->debug("old string = ", $oldString);
100         $logger->debug("new string = ", $newString);

[download]
Results 
INFO main:::79: Change 3 was to the Automated field of testCase HIREX-
+16863 on createdDate 2013-05-13 12:19:42 Old String = (To Be Automate
+d) New String = Ready For Integration
DEBUG main:::82: oldString = (OLDSTRING)
DEBUG main:::83: newString = (NEWSTRING)
INFO main:::84: OLDSTRING = OLDSTRING
DEBUG main:::93: oldString = (To Be Automated)
DEBUG main:::94: newString = (Ready For Integration)
$VAR1 = 'To Be Automated';
Use of uninitialized value in pattern match (m//) at weeklyAutomationC
+hanges.pl line 98.
Use of uninitialized value in pattern match (m//) at weeklyAutomationC
+hanges.pl line 98.

[download]

-Logan
"What do I want? I'm an American. I want more."

In reply to Re^4: The simplest possible pattern match defeats me by logan
in thread The simplest possible pattern match defeats me by logan

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.