I am seeking help on a script using nested loops. I am extracting a name from @name_array, and searching
each line of each file in @files. If the line contains
the name ($wanted_name), I want the line to be printed
into OUTPUTFILE.
Problem 1 : Don't know how to pass a variable $wanted_name
into a regular expression. It must be a variable to be
updated. Someting like: if ($line =~ m/$wanted_name/i) etc..

Problem 2: OK, since I can't deal with Problem 1, if I
hard-code a name I know to exist in several files (and
therefore will be printed to OUTPUTFILE), the matching
lines will be printed but REPEATEDLY. It seems as if
the program runs correctly, then repeats itself like
there is some form of infinite loop going on.
foreach $name (@name_array) { $wanted_name = ($name); foreach $file (@files) { open (FILE, $file); @array = <FILE>; close(FILE); foreach $line (@array) { if ($line =~ m/$wanted_name/i) { print OUTPUTFILE "$line"; } } } } close(OUTPUTFILE);
Thanks in Advance

In reply to Nested foreach problem by Anonymous Monk

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.