So here is the deal. I have a program that pulls 3 things from the STDIN... userid and two dates. These dates are then fed into DATE::SIMPLE and DATE::RANGE. I then look at all the files in a given directory and parse through these files for any occurences of the userid... if the userid is found, I then look at the date on this line and check if it is in the range of the two STDIN dates. If so, I write this line to a file. The majority of this program works, I am just getting tripped up on one line.... if ($record =~ m/$userinput/g). I use this piece of code to check the line in the file for the userid (or patient) given at STDIN. This line always returns false.

I have tried an alternate method using index, however it to always returns false. Popping the comma delimited line out into an array and directly comparing is a time consuming option as I allow the user to put in multiple types of input (i.e. patient or userid which are both different fields). Any quick fixes are greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Nick

Full Code: 
use Date::Range;
use Date::Simple ();

print "Enter the userid or patient name (partials accepted): ";
$userinput = <STDIN>;

print "Enter the start date: ";
$dateinput1 = <STDIN>;

print "Enter the end date: ";
$dateinput2 = <STDIN>;                    

$date1  = Date::Simple->new($dateinput1);                             
+                           # converts user inputted dates to simple d
+ates
$date2  = Date::Simple->new($dateinput2);

$range = Date::Range->new($date1, $date2);

$dirname = "../normalized/"; 
opendir(DIR, $dirname) or die "can't opendir $dirname";
    while ( defined ($file = readdir DIR) ) {
        next if $file =~ /^[\.nSo]/;                                  
+                          # ensures that folders with n, S or o arent
+ processed 
        $ORIGINALNAME = "../normalized/" . "$file";
        $REPORTNAME = "../normalized/" . $userinput . "-" . $dateinput
+1 . "_" . $dateinput2 . ".csv";        
        open (LOGFILE, $ORIGINALNAME) or die "can't open $ORIGINALNAME
+";
            while ($record = <LOGFILE>) {                             
+                          # While reads records line by line from beg
+inning to end of file
                @stringasarray = split(",", $record);                 
+                           # Takes comma delimited line and breaks in
+to array
                $cutdate = substr ($stringasarray[4],0,10);           
+                         # Identifies date field and chops the time o
+ff the end
                $date3  = Date::Simple->new($cutdate);                
+                            # converts the date to a simple date
                if ($record =~ m/$userinput/g)
                {
                print "TEST2!";
                    if ($range->includes($date3)) {                   
+                          # tests if date from file is within the use
+r inputed dates
                        print "TEST!";
                        #open (REPORT, ">>$REPORTNAME") or die ("Canno
+t open");                  # Open the report file for writing 
                        #print REPORT $record;                        
+                           # Print record to the file
                    } 
                } 
                exit;
            }
    }   
                                                                      
+                          # Close files
close(LOGFILE);
close (REPORT);
closedir(DIR);

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In reply to reg ex. problem - 2 variables by praevalesco

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