It seems like you should be using a slightly different datastructure for this. A hash of arrays (HoA) would fit nicely... The hash is keyed on the broker's name and the values are arrays containing the matching lines. Something like this: 
#!/usr/bin/perl -wT
use strict;

my @brokerlist = qw(broknum1 broknum2 broknum3);    # array of brokers
my $pattern = join('|',@brokerlist);    # create a ORed regex of the b
+rokers

my %brokers;       # will become a hash of arrays, keyed on broker nam
+e

while(<DATA>) {
  chomp;
  # if the line matches push it onto appropriate array
  push(@{$brokers{$1}},$_ ) if /\b($pattern)\b/o;   
}


### print out the datastructure to make sure it is correct
for my $broker (keys %brokers) {
  print "$broker\n";
  print "\t$_\n" for (@{$brokers{$broker}});
}

=OUTPUT
broknum2
        broknum2 is my favorite broker
broknum3
        i am a broknum3 client
        my uncle is broknum3
broknum1
        this line if for broknum1
        broknum1 is a fool
=cut

__DATA__
this line if for broknum1
i am a broknum3 client
broknum2 is my favorite broker
broknum1 is a fool
my uncle is broknum3

[download]

-Blake

In reply to Re: Appropriate application of readline by blakem
in thread Appropriate application of readline by quasimojo

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