Well, one problem is your function call is embedded in a string where it won't be called. Take this

print $oh "$NO\n", "events($@list)\n", "$SEC1, $LONG, $LAT, $DEPTH, $G
+AP\n";
[download]

to

print $oh "$NO\n", events($@list), "\n$SEC1, $LONG, $LAT, $DEPTH, $GAP
+\n";
[download]

Also, in case anyone else wants to help further, here's the code with better spacing.

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

my $fin = "SELECTDAT2";
my $fout = "myfile";

open my $ih, '<', $fin or die "cannot open $fin for reading, $! ";
open my $oh, '>', $fout or die "cannot open $fout for writing, $! ";

while (<$ih>) {
    my @tokens = split;
    my $SEC1  = $tokens[4];
    my $LAT   = $tokens[5];
    my $LONG  = $tokens[6];
    my $DEPTH = $tokens[7];
    my $NO    = $tokens[11];
    my $GAP   = $tokens[12];
    
    my $nextline = <$ih>;
    $nextline;

    my $y = $tokens[0];
    my $m = $tokens[1];
    my $d = $tokens[2];
    my $h = $tokens[3];

    sub events {
        my @list;
        foreach $nextline (@list) {
            if ($nextline le $NO) {
                my @tokens = split;
                my $SOURCE = $tokens[0];
                my $PSEC   = $tokens[4];
                my $PQ     = $tokens[5];
                my $SSEC   = $tokens[8];
                my $SQ     = $tokens[9];
                push (@list, $_);
            }
        }
        return @list;
    }

    last line if $nextline eq "";
    print $oh "$NO\n", events($@list), "\n$SEC1, $LONG, $LAT, $DEPTH, 
+$GAP\n";
}
close ($oh);
close ($ih);
[download]

- Miller

---

---

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! —

• How do I compose an effective node title?
• How do I post a question effectively?
• Markup in the Monastery

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:
	&		&
	<		&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.