Yes. I verified, using print statements, that the partnumber is the same both when I add it to the hash and when I look for the existence of the hash. Also, when I print out the keys, the part number is there in all its glory.
If it helps, I'm using cygwin and perl 5.8.0.
Also, I verified that there is no CR/LF (I'm presuming this is why people are suggesting chomp()).