As Corion suggested, use a LIKE query

# Remove non-alphanumeric characters 
# and replace them with spaces
$title =~ s/[^\w| ]/ /g;    
my @words = split /\s+/, $title;
my $filename = join '-',$date,@words;
               
# check to see if filename is being used
my $table = 'FILENAMES';
my $sql   = "SELECT filename FROM $table 
             WHERE filename LIKE ?";
my $res = $dbh->selectall_arrayref($sql,undef,$filename.'%');
my %hash = map {$_->[0]=>1} @$res;

my $i='';
while ( exists $hash{$filename.$i.'.html'} ){
  ++$i;
  ++$i if $i==1;
}
my $sql_i = "INSERT INTO $table (filename) VALUES (?)";
$dbh->do($sql_i,undef,$filename.$i.'.html');

[download]
poj

In reply to Re: Avoiding duplicate filenames by poj
in thread Avoiding duplicate filenames by htmanning

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.