I am trying to write a program that removes an entry from one of three lists. The program appears to work except the new files conf_list_* are empty except for the entries deleted. What am I missing?

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;

use File::Copy ("cp");

my $announce_off = "master_conf_list_announce_off";
my $announce_on = "master_conf_list_announce_on";
my $beep_on = "master_conf_list_beep_on";
my $date = &getDate;
my (%announce_off, %announce_on, %beep_on);

print "$date\n";
#create Backup files in the backup folder.  just incase anything goes 
+wrong.
cp ("./master_list/$announce_off", "./master_list/backup/$announce_off
+" . $date);
cp ("./master_list/$announce_on", "./master_list/backup/$announce_on" 
+. $date);
cp ("./master_list/$beep_on", "./master_list/backup/$beep_on" . $date)
+;

#create a scratch pad 
cp ("./master_list/$announce_off", "./master_list/$announce_off\.bak")
+;
cp ("./master_list/$announce_on", "./master_list/$announce_on\.bak");
cp ("./master_list/$beep_on", "./master_list/$beep_on\.bak");

#delete original files
unlink ("./master_list/$announce_off");
unlink ("./master_list/$announce_on"); 
unlink ("./master_list/$beep_on");

#open files for reading
open my $ANNOUNCE_OFFFH, '<', "./master_list/$announce_off\.bak";
open my $ANNOUNCE_ONFH, '<', "./master_list/$announce_on\.bak";
open my $BEEP_ONFH, '<', "./master_list/$beep_on\.bak";
open my $DELETE_LISTFH, '<', "$ARGV[0]";

#open files for writing
open my $ANNOUNCE_OFFNEW, '>>', "./master_list/$announce_off";
open my $ANNOUNCE_ONNEW, '>>', "./master_list/$announce_on";
open my $BEEP_ONNEW, '>>', "./master_list/$beep_on";
open my $DELETED_ITEMS, '>>', "./deleted_items.txt";


#slurp each file into hash
foreach (<$ANNOUNCE_OFFFH>){
    chomp($_);
    $announce_off{$_} = 1;
}

foreach(<$ANNOUNCE_ONFH>){
    chomp($_);
    $announce_on{$_} =1;
}
    
foreach(<$BEEP_ONFH>){
    chomp($_);
    $beep_on{$_} = 1;
}

#parse through the list to delete for items to delete
#print in either the old location or a liste of deleted files
foreach (<$DELETE_LISTFH>){
    chomp($_);
    print { exists $announce_off{$_} ? $ANNOUNCE_OFFNEW : $DELETED_ITE
+MS } $_ ."\n";
    print { exists $announce_on{$_} ? $ANNOUNCE_ONNEW : $DELETED_ITEMS
+} $_ ."\n";
    print { exists $beep_on{$_} ? $BEEP_ONNEW : $DELETED_ITEMS } $_ . 
+"\n";
}

close $ANNOUNCE_OFFNEW;
close $ANNOUNCE_ONNEW;
close $BEEP_ONNEW;
close $DELETED_ITEMS;

sub getDate(){
    my @months = qw(Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec);
    my(@weekDays) = qw(Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun);
    my($second, $minute, $hour, $dayOfMonth, $month, $yearOffset, $day
+OfWeek, $dayOfYear, $daylightSavings) = localtime();
    my($year) = 1900 + $yearOffset;
    my($theTime) = "\_$dayOfMonth\_$months[$month]\_$hour$minute";
    return $theTime;
}

[download]

Thanks for any assistance in advance.

EDIT:

ok, so I know I have it backwards. When I parse through my files I don't actually DELETE the item, I just choose which file to print it to. Since I am just testing if a key exists, and if it does, I am printing it to a file. So the reason I come up with empty files is that I never print anything to my files...

rookie mistake

So this leads me to my next question, how do I remove said entries from the hash? I'll check Google. Does any one have any suggestions on a better way to do this? I'd like any comments/constructive criticisms.

In reply to Remove From List by PyrexKidd

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.