This looks like you are parsing XML. You should really consider using a module like XML::Twig to do the heavy lifting for you:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w use warnings; use strict; use XML::Twig; my $xml = <<XML; <head><ID>This is an id</ID> <Title> Title stuff </Title> <Title>Another title</Title> </head> XML my $twig = XML::Twig->new( twig_roots => { ID => \&dump, TimeStamp => \&dump, IP_Address => \&dump, Title => \&dump, Complainant => \&dump, } ); $twig->parse($xml); sub dump { my ($t, $elt) = @_; (my $text = $elt->text()) =~ s/^\s+|\s+$//g; print "$text\n"; }

Prints:

This is an id Title stuff Another title
True laziness is hard work

In reply to Re: I don't understand why I'm getting an "Use of uninitialized value" error by GrandFather
in thread I don't understand why I'm getting an "Use of uninitialized value" error by TheBigAmbulance

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.