hahahaha, <--- that's real laughter, not nervous, I look like a slump and need to play it off laughter. ;-) OK, so, I hardly ever use any of the types of syntax you do. I'm finding this a lot. I guess it's because I learned from the first edition books, and never have learned much about new ways, for instance,

 open(IN, $file) || die $!

[download]

is the only way I know how to open a file, and have never bothered using a different method, just as I have never used 

next if

[download]

and I've always been taught that nice clean code, always has all variables declared before hand, never in the middle of the program. So, basically, my "nastiness" of the code you gave me :p, was to figure out what you were doing, where I didn't understand. I have sort of been thrown into the big leagues whether I belong there or not, so I guess I better pick up a bat...

So, if I may, please help me understand why you're using the next if, instead of regular if's nested as I did, why nesting if statements is a bad idea, and what do you mean about slurping up files? I know I'm probably going to lose a million XP and get slammed for these questions, but oh well, I tried to avoid it and GrandFather threw me out in the open, so I guess I might as well ask now. ;-)

In reply to Re^3: Matching and combining two text files by koolgirl
in thread Matching and combining two text files by koolgirl

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.