I'm having a couple problems with the following. I can't seem to get it to replace the * with !. It leaves the output unchanged. 
my $output; 
       while( my $line = <DATA> ) {
           # get rid of line terminator:
           chomp $line;
           # Get rid of line numbers:
           $line =~ s/^N[0-9]{2}\ //;
           # Replace * and the beginning of the line with !:
           $line =~ s/^\*(.*)/!$1/ and print $line and next if $line;
           # Keep any numbers prefixed with X,Y or Z.:
           $line =~ s/(X|Y|Z)([0-9.-]+)/ $2/g if $line;
           # Throw the rest away:
           $line =~ s/[A-Z][0-9.+-]+//g if $line;
           open 
           print $line;
       }
       __DATA__
O1407!SILH 5B NECK PROFILE STD.>
N1! 11-14-01
N2!T1 3/4" ENDMILL
N3! OUTPUT IN ABSOLUTE
N4L0200
N5! SUB NUMBER: 2
N6G90G0X11.108Y-18.25
N7G1Z-1.13F80.

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Also, when I try to read the data in from a file..ie: 
$file = "file.txt";
open (FILE, "$file");
       my $output; 
       while( my $line = <FILE> )... etc.

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I don't even get close to the desired output as in the first snippet. I know this is probably an easy fix for the almighty monks...I just can't seem to find what's wrong. Thank you for any help!

In reply to shouldn't this work? by airblaine

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