Hola Perl Monks, I seek your wisdom. I have an array of ID's (@sample_ids in the code below) that have been flagged as being faulty for some reason. I have the CSV file that contains all the original data and want to print out rows with the sample IDs in my array. So far I have written the following code 

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;

my @error_array;
my @sample_ids;
my @merged_array;

#Opening File Number 1

open (ERRORFILE,"<", "Errors-email.txt") || die "File not found\n";  
        @error_array = <ERRORFILE>;  
close ERRORFILE;

#Opening File Number 2

open (CSV,"<", "Merged_CSVfiles.csv") || die "File not found\n"; 
    @merged_array = <CSV>; 
close CSV;        
        
#Getting the sample ids    
    
    foreach my $line(@error_array){
        if($line =~ m/^Sample_identifier/){
                
            $line =~ s/Sample_identifier//;
            $line =~ s/IRD.+:$//;
            $line =~ s/\///;
            $line =~ s/^\s//;
            $line =~ s/IRD.+$//;
                        
                push(@sample_ids,$line);
#                    print(@sample_ids);
                        
                }# End of the if loop
            }#End of the for-each loop        
    

foreach my $records(@merged_array){
    
    if($records =~ /$sample_ids[3]/){
        print $records;
    }
}

[download]

I have noted that when I put in UCD67832 (the sample id stored as the 4th element in the array) into the matching statement instead of the sample_ids array element that's there, it is able to return the line no problem. I'm not sure what is the problem. I had tried nested for-each loops before but I bungled that. I have been trying to understand why this doesn't work but so far nothing. -Thanks for your time in advance or retroactively Dave-O

Update sorry about that let me share my data. My CSV has 28 fields in it like for instance and each line represents a record. My @sample_ids has in this specific case 438 ids. 

Name,Building,Processing Date,Receipt Date, Location,Patient Id,Sample
+ ID,
John Doe,G building,05-Aug-2012,08-Aug-2012,New York City,ABC2345,UCD2
+3467, 
John Moe,H building,05-Aug-2012,08-Aug-2012,New York City,DEF2345,UCD8
+0645,
John Slo,I building,05-Aug-2012,08-Aug-2012,New York City,GHI2345,UCD7
+6765,
John Hor,j building,05-Aug-2012,08-Aug-2012,New York City,JKL2345,UCD8
+7111,

[download]
What I wanted to be able to do is to have an expression like this foreach $line ( I called it record in the original code) if there is a match to an element in my arrays of sample_ids then to print out that line. In the code I put $sample_ids3 as a test to see if the line/record would print but it didnt. 
foreach my $records(@merged_array){
    
    if($records =~ /$sample_ids[3]/){
        print $records;
    }

[download]
Update Here is what the contents of the error file look like 
**************************************
Errors for file: Merged_CSVfiles_1.txt
**************************************

Sample_identifier 11SS00342 / IRD Clinic  clinic_HIV000140180:
*  The following fields contain invalid values: Blah blah blah blah
*
Sample_identifier 11SS00336 / IRD Clinic  clinic_HIV000140174:
*  The following fields contain invalid values: Yada yada yada
*
Sample_identifier 11SS00303 / IRD Clinic  clinic_HIV000140141:
*  The following fields contain invalid values: yeah yeah yeah

[download]
Just to check that the array @sample_ids contains the actual ids I printed the contents of the sample id' and got the following 
                    
    push(@sample_ids,$line);
        print(@sample_ids);

[download]
I get the following output which is the list of the ID's (this is just a truncated list, just 8 of the 438 errors) UCD11-02580-V UCD11-02581-P UCD11-02581-V UCD11-02583-P UCD11-02583-V UCD11-02584-P UCD11-02584-V UCD11-02585-P I also did the following as a check 
                    
push(@sample_ids,$line);
                        
    }# End of the if loop
}#End of the for-each loop        

print $sample_ids[3];

[download]
and I got 11SS00304

In reply to Why is the following instance of Matching using an array element not working by MyJeweledPerls

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