Try this:

open (CINGULAR, "c:/documents and Settings/david price/my documents/ci
+ngular.txt") || die "cannot open: $!";
@number=<CINGULAR>;
close (CINGULAR);
# Remove the following commented lines
# $count=0;
# while ($count<100) {
# if (@number=~/^9432$/g) {
# print "match found"; }
# else {
# print "match failed";
# }
# $count++;
# }

# and change them to:
foreach $line ( @number ) {
    if ( $line =~ /^9432$/g ) {
        print "Match found\n";
    } else {
        print "Match failed\n";
    }
}
[download]

The foreach loop allows you to loop through each element of the array, pull out one element at a time ($line), check it for the pattern, and print the appropriate message. You could add a counter in one or both sections of the conditional block to determine the number of matches/non-matches you get and print this as a summary at the end of the script. ( Beats manually counting up the "Match Found" and "Match Failed" lines in the DOS window. :) )

You're going to want to rethink your regular expression, though. :) Think about what the ^ and $ anchors are do. The way you have it written right now, you will only get a match when the number 9432 is the only text in the line.

HTH,

/Larry