in reply to using if-elsif-else

lots of extra brackets there!, also, an "else" cannot have a conditional, so you need another "elsif", use "else" for a catchall at the end, ive fixed up your snippet below:
if ($name =~ /^derrick\b/i) { print $phnums{"derrick"}; } elsif ($name =~ /^juan\b/i) { print $phnums{"juan"}; } elsif ($name =~ /^kevin\b/i) { print $phnums{"kevin"}; } else { print "No such person!\n"; };



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