Let's just look at the first error that Perl tells you; usually the following errors are results of the first error:

syntax error at pull_out_tables.pl line 24, near "if $line "
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Now, let's look at line 24:

    if $line not =~ (/INSERT INTO Message_pool)/{
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Now, I can propably guess what you want to say here, but Perl doesn't. There is a Mark-Jason Dominus quote in here, but I'll limit myself to point you to perldoc perlop. Perl isn't that good at guessing what you want. Likely you want the following code instead:

    if ($line !~ /INSERT INTO Message_pool/) {
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You should also try to reduce your scripts to the minimum snippet that fails instead of posting a whole program. I also noticed you talking in the CB about this earlier, and people already told you how the negation regex operator works. Why didn't you listen to them?

#! perl -w scipt
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use strict;
use warnings;
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my @files;
my @List_of_commands; 
my $line;
my $file;
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while (<*.sql>) {
  push (@files,$_);
}
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my @files=<*.sql>;
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foreach (@files) {
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for (<*.sql>) {  # I never use C<foreach> ;-)
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  $file = $_;
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• either use $_ directly,
• use the common perlish syntactic sugar:

  for my $file (<*.sql>) {  # I still prefer C<for> orver C<foreach>!!
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  open (FILE, "<$file");
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1. always check the return value of opens and (somewhat less importantly) also to
2. use lexical filehandles and
3. the 3-args form of open?

  while (<FILE>){

    my $line = $_;
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    if $line not =~ (/INSERT INTO Message_pool)/{
      #Do nothing
    }
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Incidentally, if #Do nothing is just a placeholder, then fine. But if you think you want to keep it like that, which is not totally unprobable, taking into account your coding {style,experience} as of what I could see above, then just know that eliminating the whole if statement will do just fine.

All in all I recommend reading some introductory Perl tutorial before going on...

Update: I gave a more comprehensive peek into the rest of your script and I think that it could be rewritten much more simply e.g. along this way:

#!/usr/bin/perl
# UNTESTED!

use strict;
use warnings;

open my $out, '>', "outfile.txt" or
  die "Can't open output file: $!\n";
select $out;

@ARGV=<*.sql>;
while (<>) {
    next unless /^.{0,50}CREATE TABLE
                 \s
                 ([A-Z|a-z|_]{5,40})
                 \s
                 .{1,100}/x;
    print "if exists (select 1 from INFORMATION_SCHEMA.tables where ta
+ble_name = '$1') DROP TABLE '$1'\n";
}

__END__
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#!/usr/bin/perl -ln

use strict;
use warnings;

BEGIN {@ARGV=map glob, @ARGV} # You're under Win*, aren't you?

next unless /$whatever (\w+) $whatever/;
print "whatever: $1";

__END__
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#! perl -w scipt
use strict;
use warnings;
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Good! But then no need for -w.

Actually, -w and use warnings are scoped differently. -w is dynamically scoped (i.e. it's a global), while use warnings is file/block scoped. In other words, -w affects modules, but use warnings only affects the file its in.

"scipt" should not be there, however.

---

So why not avoiding to use the intermediate variable @files and just do

for (<*.sql>) { # I never use C<foreach> ;-)
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Why load the entire list into memory? Just use:

while (<*.sql>) {
   ...
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---

# I still prefer C<for> orver C<foreach>!!
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I use for for for loops (e.g. for (1..100)) and foreach for foreach loops (e.g. foreach (@array)). Using for unconditionally as you do is bad programming, since it affects the ability to read your program negatively.

Actually, -w and use warnings are scoped differently. -w is dynamically scoped (i.e. it's a global), while use warnings is file/block scoped. In other words, -w affects modules, but use warnings only affects the file its in.

Indeed. The point being that since he has use warnings; anyway, he most probably doesn't want -w on the shebang line, leaving aside "scipt", for the moment. All in all that looked much like cargo cult to me...

    for (<*.sql>) { # I never use C<foreach> ;-)
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Why load the entire list into memory? Just use:

Oh, how many *.sql files can he have?!? But jokes apart, I second that: while is certainly better, well: until we'll have lazy evaluation!!

while (<*.sql>) { ...
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In fact. Except that, as a minor note, you'd probably need to give it a name. And as an even minor note, to avoid confusion with the typical filehandle iterator idiom, I'd write an explicit glob there.

I use for for for loops (e.g. for (1..100)) and foreach for foreach loops (e.g. foreach (@array)). Using for unconditionally as you do is bad programming, since it affects the ability to read your program negatively.

I beg to differ: I find both quite as readable and synonims also in the psychological feeling they give. And I find for to be easier both to think of and to type. Using foreach would affect negatively readability for me and avoiding to use it IMHO doesn't severly injure it for others. As many other things in Perl, it's largely a matter of personal tastes; I wouldn't be so drastic about it. Of course I'm not trying or even thinking of imposing my own point of view, either. Period!

if $line not =~ (/INSERT INTO Message_pool)/{
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if $line not =~ (/INSERT INTO Message_pool)/{

From perlsyn:

if (EXPR) BLOCK elsif (EXPR) BLOCK ... else BLOCK
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The parens are optional on the statement modifier form of if, but not in the flow control case. Additionally:

$line not =~ (/INSERT INTO Message_pool)/

is not valid. You want either:

( not $line =~ m/INSERT INTO Message_pool/ )
# or more likely
( $line !~ m/INSERT INTO Message_pool/ )
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But perhaps the real question is why you test a condition to discard it, rather than combining this condition with the next... actually, I started to rewrite your conditional based on what I thought that you meant, but I can't figure it out. Is the second condition not unreachable? If the line is not an INSERT, do nothing, otherwise if it is a CREATE do something? It has to be both an INSERT and a CREATE.

Other questions/comments:

• What does #! perl -w scipt mean, and why are you using -w and use warnings?
• You declare $line and $file in the broadest scope possible, only to mask them in inner scopes.

updated

Update: Forget about my comment. I put your code in one directory, but did a perl -c with a script that has the same name in a different directory. Need morning coffee. This has no problem with Perl 5.8.7, at least from syntax point of view.

Update2: What you want is something like this:

    if ($line !~ /INSERT INTO Message_pool/) {
      #Do nothing
    }
    elsif ($line =~ /^.{0,50}CREATE TABLE\s([A-Z|a-z|_]{5,40})\s.{1,10
+0}/) {
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Other than the () issue. The way to express not match, is !~, not "not =~". By the way, if you are really fond of "not", to make the syntax right, you can say:

    if (not ($line =~ /INSERT INTO Message_pool/)) {
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