Thanks for your help and suggestions. I have read up on subroutines now and come up with the code below. I think this addresses a lot of the points and appears to work quite well but I don't see all of my data file (prev.txt) on screen. Have I still got something wrong? TIA S. 
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

my(@DATAFILE);

@DATAFILE=&readdata();

&testcode1(@DATAFILE);

&writedata(@DATAFILE);

#
# Subroutine for reading prev.txt into an array
#

sub readdata {
    open (PH, "prev.txt") || die "Cannot open prev.txt: $!";
    my(@DATA)=<PH>;
    chomp @DATA;
    close (PH);
    return(@DATA);
}

#
# Subroutine for writing array into prev.txt
#

sub writedata {
    my(@DATA)=@_;
    open (PH, ">prev.txt") || die "Cannot open prev.txt: $!";
    foreach(@DATA) {
        print PH "$_\n";
    }
    close (PH);
}

#
# Subroutines for various tests on the code
#

sub testcode1 {
    print "@_";
}

[download]

In reply to Re: Re: Printing an array by shemyaza
in thread Printing an array by shemyaza

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.