I've been trying to match and extract information from a flat text file. (CGI). The script is as follows:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
#use CGI::Carp qw(fatalsToBrowser warningsToBrowser);
use CGI ':standard';


my  $data="/path/data.txt";
my  $other_data="/path/other_data.txt";
 

my $checkfour = param('check');
my @other = ();


open (OTHER, $other_data);

while (my $line =<OTHER>) {
    my ($one,$two,$three,$four,$five) = split "\t",$line;
     if ($four eq $checkfour) { 
     push (@other, $three);
     push (@other, $four); 
     last;  
    }
}
close (OTHER);

my $checkthree = shift(@other);
my $four = shift(@other);


print header(), start_html(-title => "");

print "get $checkthree and $four then $checkfour<br>";

open (FILE, "$data");
while (my $line =<FILE>) {
    my ($one,$two,$three,$four,$five) = split "\t",$line;
    if ($three eq $checkthree) {
    
print "<p>With matching parameters I should be able to see this </p>";
last;
} else {print "<p>If I put the else statement in it ignores the fact t
+hat the parameters match - and comes here!  (But I don't know why).</
+p>";
              last;
              }
}
    
close FILE;
print end_html();
[download]

If the input in $checkfour matches the field $four then I can take out the information. If it doesn't match the 'else' kicks in.

Except.....when I use parameters that do match, it matches only if the else statement is not there - if take it out I get the match, if I put it in it ignores the match and goes to the else.

If someone could tell me why I'd be very grateful.

---

---

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! —

• How do I compose an effective node title?
• How do I post a question effectively?
• Markup in the Monastery

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:
	&		&
	<		&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.