while ( <DATA> ) {
    my $dpdrivloc = "MSL6000 Trinity";
    if ( /\Q$dpdrivloc\E:\s*(\d+)/ ) {
      print "$1\n";
    }
}

__DATA__
Label      Location                 Pool Name  Protection
[NFK100L2] [MSL6000 Trinity:     1] MSL6000    01/19/2004
[NFK101L2] [MSL6000 Trinity:     5] MSL6000    01/19/2004
[download]

Links to previous SOPW questions about the same problem:
• here
• here
• here

jamen_98, in general, please try to post only one question about a given topic. If you need help, please try to narrow down your question rather than asking the same one again and again. This is a rather basic Perl question, so perhaps you should buy a copy of the O'Reilly Camel Book (Programming Perl) and the Llama Book (Learning Perl) if we aren't able to answer your question after the first 3 times around. It think some added studying effort on your part is needed, we can't always be here to provide answers. We can love to help if you have a problem, but we need legwork from you -- it's "teaching a man to fish" if that aphorism is present in your neck of the woods.

The line 'my $slotnumber = <OUTFILE>;' is only ever going to get you one line from OUTFILE, but you may already know this. I'm kind of suprised that it's giving you a 5 instead of a 1, though, with the sample data that you provided.

I'm almost afraid to offer advice since I may not fully grasp the issue, but would it not be an straight-forward matter to print each match to a separate line in OUTFILE, and then just read each match in a while loop as you eject?

Update:
It's probably not necessary to print anything to another file, unless you're going to need those values for another purpose, so your code could probably be simplified into something like:

use strict;
use warnings;

system ("c:\\Perl\\DataPro\\convert.bat");
open(DPSLOTFILE, "< c:\\Perl\\DataPro\\newreport.txt") or die "Can't o
+pen file: $!";
while ( <DPSLOTFILE> ) {
    my $dpdrivloc = "MSL6000 Trinity";
    if ( /\Q$dpdrivloc\E:\s*(\d+)/ ) {
    #use match for system call!
    system("c:\\Perl\\DataPro\\omnimm -eject \"MSL6000 Trinity\" $1 -l
+ocation \"blahblahblah\"");
    print OUTFILE "$1";
    }
}
close DPSLOTFILE;
[download]

• First, you run an ms-dos batch file (convert.bat). Does this take some data file and convert it into some other data file? Why wouldn't you just do that as part of your perl script? (Um, okay, maybe it's because you don't know Perl that well yet... or maybe convert.bat was provided by DataPro to format their more complex log format; nevermind.)
• Next, you open and read a text file (newreport.txt). (Is this the one that "convert.bat" created, by any chance?) You capture these single digits from each line and save them to another output file (output.txt).
• Finally, based on your final question, you want to read each line of output.txt and run a system call that will eject the tape corresponding to the saved digit.

Maybe what you really want, then, is simply to run that last system call while you're reading "newreport.txt" -- this will save you a lot of trouble.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;

system ("c:\\Perl\\DataPro\\convert.bat");

open(DPSLOTFILE, "< c:\\Perl\\DataPro\\newreport.txt")
     or die "Can't open file: $!";

while ( <DPSLOTFILE> ) { 
   if ( /MSL6000\s+Trinity\s+(\d+)/ ) {
      my $tapeid = $1;
      print "Running omnimm to eject $tapeid\n";
      system("c:\\Perl\\DataPro\\omnimm -eject \"MSL6000 Trinity\" $ta
+peid -location \"blahblahblah\"");
   }
}
[download]