when using grep() the expresion goes first and the search string second. So this my @phonesearch = grep @name, @phonelisting; should be this my @phonesearch = grep /@name/, @phonelisting;

edit:After reading the other replies I went back and looked up grep(). I was thinking it worked exactly like *NIX's grep but it seems I was mistaken. I've changed the above to relect this but I am unsure of the validity of putting an array in a REGEX. I would appreciate any input on this. I still stand by the below block as being my prefered way to preform this search.

Instead of using grep however; I would do your while loop something like this (untested code) 
my @phonesearch;
my @name =<NL>;
chomp(@name);
my $name;

while(my $phonelisting = <PB>) {
  chomp($phonelisting);  
  foreach $name (@name) {
    if ($phonelisting =~ /$name/) {
      push(@phonesearch,$phonelisting);
    }
  }
}
print OUT "@phonesearch\n";

[download]
notice I moved the declaration of @phonesearch outside the loop, this is so the value wouldn't expire when the loop ended. The reasons for my other changes are that using while(1) is a bad idea. It sets you up for an infinite loop and could bite you in a future program if it becomes a habit. Also for this type of application it makes more sense to me to go through the lists one element at a time.

John

In reply to Re: keyword query by Cyrnus
in thread keyword query by Anonymous Monk

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.