First, please wrap your code, data and expected output within <code></code> tags.

You should always use strict; and use warnings;. I believe the problem you're having is that you don't define $public_key_type prior to the loop. perl lexicalizes variables, so if you define something within a scope, that variable will not be accessible outside of that scope; this is by design.

You don't show the beginning of the while loop, so I've guessed. Try something like the following (untested):

use strict;
use warnings;

my $public_key_type;

while (my $line = <DATA>){
    if ( $line =~ /^Public Key Type:/ ) {
        $public_key_type = scalar <DATA> for 1;
        $public_key_type =~ s/^\s+//;
        $public_key_type =~ s/\s+$//;
        $public_key_type =~ s/\R//g;
    }
}

print "$public_key_type\n";

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-stevieb

In reply to Re: variable has value but then become empty by stevieb
in thread variable has value but then become empty by Randy_j53

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