Hi brethren, I have a problem coming to grips with writing changes to an HTML file via a filehandle. Hope the Abbey can cast light upon my coding darkness...what am I doing wrong?

#!/usr/bin/perl
# write mods to HTML file.plx
# Program will read in an html file, remove the img tag and rewrite HT
+ML on E-drive.
# 1. No need for file variable yet: open (INFILE, "<".$htmlFile) or di
+e("Can't read source file!\n");
# 2. Alternative: m/<A\s+HREF=[^>]+>(.*?)<\/A>/  - Will not remove clo
+sing tag though - why?
# 3. Why is interpreter flipping-out over an 'undefined variable', whe
+n
#    original regexp, m/<A\s+HREF=[^>]+>(.*?)<\/A>/, is known to work.
+ What am I missing?

use warnings;
use diagnostics;
use strict;

# Declare and initialise variables.
my $pattern1 = '<IMG\s+(.*)>';
my $pattern2 = '<A\s+HREF\s*=[^>]+>';
my $pattern3 = '</A>';
my @htmlLines;
my @htmlFile;

# Open HTML test file and read into array.
open INFILE, "E:/Documents and Settings/Richard Lamb/My Documents/HTML
+/test1InDocCSS.html" or die "Sod! Can't open this file.\n";
@htmlLines = <INFILE>;
close (INFILE);

scrapImageTag();
scrapAnchorTag();

# Removes image tag elements in array
sub scrapImageTag
{
  foreach my $line (@htmlLines)
  {
    # replace <IMG ...> with nothing.
    $line =~ s/$pattern1//ig;  # case insensitivity and global search 
+for pattern
  }
}

# Removes anchor tag elements in array
sub scrapAnchorTag
{
  foreach my $line (@htmlLines)
  {
    # replace <A HREF ...> with nothing.
    $line =~ s/$pattern2//ig;  # case insensitivity and global search 
+for pattern
    $line =~ s/$pattern3//ig;  # case insensitivity and global search 
+for pattern
  }
}

# Am I deleting the contents of the list with this? Not sure...
open (OUTFILE, ">@htmlLines") or die("Can't rewrite the HTML file.\n")
+;
print OUTFILE "@htmlLines\n";
close (OUTFILE);
[download]

I'm trying to write the changed code back to the file on the hard-drive, by writing on a filehandle, so I can re-open the html document. I use a print operator? I have to come clean and say that the file writing's confusing the Hell out of me. Are file tests the answer, assign to a new list variable? Time to try. Here's the code I've written so far - the file won't open for writing (yet). Confusion!!! Rich

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