in reply to match and read

There are a number of problems with you code fragment. In particular $value never gets a value and $reading can never become non-zero. Perhaps you could sort those problems first, then you could tell us what the problem is that you see and what result you would rather see.

Note that using a __DATA__ section as in the sample code below means that we can all share the pleasure of testing your code for you. Note too that use warnings; use strict; often saves red faces.

use strict;
use warnings;

my $file = "Appxxx";

while (<DATA>) {
  my $reading = 0;
  
  $reading++ if $reading;
  if(/.* ss:Name=\"$file*/oi){
    # When we see <Appxxx> start storing the data
    print "VALUE IS $value \n";
    $reading = 1;
  }
  
  $reading = 0 if (/<Row AutoFitHeight=\"0\">/);
  next unless $reading;
  print "$_";
}

__DATA__
<Worksheet ss:Name="Appxxx">
<Table ss:ExpandedColumnCount="9" ss:ExpandedRowCount="4" x:FullColumn
+s="1">

   <Row ss:StyleID="s21">
    <Cell><Data ss:Type="String">APPLES</Data></Cell>
    <Cell><Data ss:Type="String">GRAPES</Data></Cell>
    <Cell><Data ss:Type="String">TOWELS</Data></Cell>
    <Cell><Data ss:Type="String">NUMBER1</Data></Cell>
    <Cell><Data ss:Type="String">NUMBER2</Data></Cell>
    <Cell><Data ss:Type="String">NUMBER3</Data></Cell>
    <Cell><Data ss:Type="String">NUMBER4</Data></Cell>
   </Row>
   <Row>
    <Cell><Data ss:Type="Number">9</Data></Cell>
    <Cell><Data ss:Type="Number">0</Data></Cell>
    <Cell><Data ss:Type="Number">0</Data></Cell>
    <Cell><Data ss:Type="Number">0</Data></Cell>
    <Cell><Data ss:Type="Number">4</Data></Cell>
    <Cell><Data ss:Type="Number">126</Data></Cell>
    <Cell><Data ss:Type="Number">5</Data></Cell>
    <Cell><Data ss:Type="Number">144</Data></Cell>
    <Cell><Data ss:Type="String">01/24/2006-03:00</Data></Cell>
   </Row>
   <Row AutoFitHeight="0">

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