Sorry I could not remember your name to give you more credit for the help you gave me. I understand your code much better now than I did last week. The first code here is how I originally had it and the code below that is diotalevi's with a few minor changes. Everything works exactly as I want it to now. I understand fully that there are much more efficient ways to do this. In time..in time.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;
use Data::Dumper;
use diagnostics -verbose;


print "Enter the Part Number you wish to search for: ";
my $part = <STDIN>;
       chomp($part);
       
print "Enter the Revison for ($part): ";
my $rev = <STDIN>;
           chomp($rev);

my $searchresult = &search(part => "$part", rev => "$rev");


if (defined $searchresult) {
    print "Located Part Number $part: @$searchresult[1 .. 7]\n";
    
}else {
    print "Your Part Number ($part) Rev ($rev) could not be found...\n
+";
}


# This routine will accept a part number as an anonymous
# hash, and search thru a text file returning the entire
# record (pipe delineated) of the 1st occurence

sub search {
    my %args = @_;
    my $retval;

    local *FH;
    open (FH, './fai.txt') || die "Cannot open file: ($!)";
    my @records = <FH>;
    
    chomp (@records);
           foreach my $line (@records){
        
        my @fields = split(/\|/, $line);
        if ($args{part} eq $fields[0] && $args{rev} eq $fields[1]){
            $retval = \@fields;
            #last;
}
            close FH;
                    return $retval;
        
    }
    
}
[download]

diotalevi's code start's here:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;
use Data::Dumper;
use diagnostics -verbose;

use constant PART => 0;
use constant REV  => 1;

print "Enter the Part Number you wish to search for: ";
my $part = <STDIN>;
chomp $part;

print "Enter the Revision for ($part): ";
my $rev = <STDIN>;
chomp $rev;




my $searchresult = search(
              part     => $part,
              rev      => $rev,
              filename => './file.db',
             );

print $searchresult
   ? "Located Part Number: @{[join ':', @$searchresult ]}\n"
   : "Your Part Number ($part) Rev ($rev) could not be found....\n"
   ;

sub search {
    my %args = @_;
    my $found = 0;
    my @record;

    open PARTS_DB, $args{filename} or die  "Cannot open file $args{fil
+ename}: $!";
    while (!$found && my $record = <PARTS_DB>)  {
        chomp $record;
        @record = split /\|/, $record;
        if ($record[PART] eq $args{part} && $record[REV] eq $args{rev
            +}) {
            $found = 1;
            last;
        }
    }

    close PARTS_DB;
    return $found ? \@record : undef;
}
[download]

Kerry

"Yet what are all such gaieties to me

Whose thoughts are full of indices and surds?"

quotes the Lama

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