Hi there
I have a number of text files that look like something like this 
0.2430
0.0830
0.1320
0.0920
0.0180
0.0880
0.3440

[download]
I would like to read though this text file and extract the two largest numbers .. in this case, 0.2430 and 0.3440. I've written the following script with this task in mind. 
#!/usr/bin/perl

$file = $ARGV[0];

open(FILE, "$file") || die "Error, can't open $file file: $!\n";

@input = <FILE>;

$largest_value = 0;
$second_value = 0;

for($i = 0; $i < @input; $i++)
{

    $value = substr($input[$i], 0, 6);

    if($value > $largest_value)
    {
    $largest_value= $value;

    }

    if(($value > $second_value) && ($value < $largest_value))
    {
    $second_value = $value;
       
    }

}
print "$largest_value $second_value\n";

[download]
The program prints the largest value correctly, but selects 0.1320 rather than 0.2430 for the second largest value, which obviously isn't correct.
Any suggests as regards to what I am doing wrong much appreciated. Thanks.

In reply to extracting the largest values by Angharad

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.