Tachyon I appreciate your help. Here is my code. This code only suppresses a block, how could I modify this code to instead of suppressing a block it suppress a line. Here is the code: 
#!perl -w

my ($fs, $cs, $rs, $ec, $ss);
setdelimiters('|^~\&');


sub setdelimiters {
    ($fs, $cs, $rs, $ec, $ss) = map {quotemeta} split //, $_[0];
} 


use strict;


my $buffer="";
my $suppress = 0;


my @field;
my %newblock;
my %partofblock;

my %skipaccount;
$skipaccount{$_} = 1 for qw(77403 77404 77406 77407 77408 77409 77411 
+77412 77413 77414 77416 77418);

 
my $infile  = 'c:/testfile.txt';
my $outfile = 'c:/idxfile.txt';
   
   
   open IN, "<$infile"  or die "Couldn't open $infile, $!";
   open OUT,">$outfile" or die "Couldn't open $outfile, $!";


$newblock{$_}    = 1 for qw(MSH);

$partofblock{$_} = 1 for qw(EVN PID FT1);


   while (<IN>) {

   chomp();

  if (/^(MSH)(.....)/) {
    setdelimiters($2);
  }

  @field = split /$fs/;


  if ($newblock{$field[0]}) {
    processbuffer();
  } elsif (!$partofblock{$field[0]}) {
    print STDERR "Possible error: segment=$field[0] line $.\n";
  }


  if ($field[0] eq "FT1") {
    $suppress = 1 if $skipaccount{$field[7]};
  }
 
   $buffer .= "$_\n";      
}
processbuffer();


sub processbuffer {
  print OUT $buffer unless $suppress;
  $buffer="";
  $suppress = 0;
}

[download]

In reply to Re: Re: Finding a string within a string by skyler
in thread Finding a string within a string by skyler

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.