Yes that would work it would just be like using perls grep function However I tried what you suggested and even put $key in the split function line of the timesearch script and it won't find what I search on and I know the script should find data because I verified the data to match. I even expanded my pattern match line so I could $key what field to look in and what it should be equal to but that didn't work either. For example here's what the lines of code I changed to try to make it work. Of course with $range equaling <STDIN>. 
($min, $max, $key) = split /-/, $range;
if (($2 ge $min) && ($2 le $max) && ($3 eq $key)) { 
      push(@{$mylist{$2}}, $_); 
  }
I ALSO TRIED THE NEXT CODE 
($min, $max, $key) = split /-/, $range;
if (($2 ge $min) && ($2 le $max) && /$key/) { 
      push(@{$mylist{$2}}, $_);
}
I ALSO TRIED THIS CODE BELOW TOO 
$range = <STDIN>;
$key = <STDIN>;
($min, $max) = split /-/, $range;
if (($2 ge $min) && ($2 le $max) && grep /$key/, $_) { 
      push(@{$mylist{$2}}, $_);
}
Excuse my dumbness but I can't figure it out.

The brassmonk

In reply to Re: Re: grep & timesearch by Anonymous Monk
in thread grep & timesearch by Anonymous Monk

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.