Thanks for your help! Is this an appropriate way to make the script recognize that all pages 27.## makes the page_description = "statement" and 22.## makes page_description="statement". Would it autosave and move to the next text file? I've been adding the page descriptions after reading the page number manually for the past few days and it's driving me insane! 
#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use Data::Dumper;

foreach my $file (glob("*.ATT")) {
    open(my $fh, '<', $file) or die "$file: $!";
    my $content = do { local $/; <$fh> };
    close($fh);

    my ( $page_id ) = $content =~ m/^page_id=(.*)/m;
    my ( $site_code ) = $content =~ m/^site_code=(.*)/m;
    my ( $subject_id ) = $content =~ m/^subject_id=(.*)/m;
    my ( $page_description ) = $content =~ m/^page_description=(.*)/m;

#if value is non-alphanumeric it skips this file
    next if(
        ($page_id =~ m/[^a-zA-Z0-9]/) || 
        ($site_code =~ m/[^a-zA-Z0-9]/) || 
        ($subject_id =~ m/[^a-zA-Z0-9]/)
    ) {die}; 
#all versions of these numbers results in those descriptions.
    if ($page_id = "27.*") {$page_description = "GRAPHICS"}; 
    if ($page_id = "21.*") {$page_description = "GENERAL COMMENTS"};
    if ($page_id = "24.*") {$page_description = "DATA IS CLEAN"};
    if ($page_id = "22.*") ($page_description = "PICTURES"};
    
    then;

    $content =~ s/^page_description=.*/page_description=$page_descript
+ion/m;

    print "$content";
    #saves the updated text file?
    close(OUT);

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In reply to Re^4: Perl noob is lost by sensesfail
in thread Perl noob is lost by sensesfail

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