excuse me for butting in here, or dont :P
But wouldnt a simple for not present:

if ( $string !~ /search patter here/ ) {
    print ( "didnt find match" );
};

[download]


for if present: 
if ( $string =~ /search pattern here/ ) {
    print ( "found string" );
    } else {
    print ( "didnt find string" );
};

[download]

please keep in mind i am new at perl but i think this would work for finding or not finding patterns in strings :)
Edit: seems i just reposted some code from above lol.

In reply to Re: Perl script to Parse a file for a string by james28909
in thread Perl script to Parse a file for a string by user786

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