#!/usr/bin/perl
#use strict;
use warnings;

use DBI;
my $db_name = "dbname";                    #Database Name
my $user_name = "myuser";              #Username
my $passwd =  "passswd";                 #Password
my $sql_query =  "select directory_path, keyword1, keyword2, keyword3 
+from load_instance where rule_id = '1'";

sub db_conn1
{
my $dbh = DBI -> connect("DBI:Oracle:".$db_name,$user_name,$passwd) ||
+ die ("not connected:DBI::errstr");
my $sth = $dbh -> prepare($sql_query);
$sth->execute();
while(my @row=$sth->fetchrow_array())       #Fetch the number of rows
{                                        #returned by the query
my $values=$row[0];
print "@row\n";
}
}
my @newarray = db_conn1($db_name,$user_name,$passwd,$sql_quer);


sub search_phrase {
    my ( $inFile, @phrases ) = @_;

    open my $inFH, q{<}, $inFile
       or die qq{open: $inFile: $!\n};

    my $line;

    PHRASE:
    foreach my $phrase ( @phrases ) {
        my $rxPhrase = qr{\Q$phrase\E};

        # keep reading down the file
        while ($line = <$inFH>) {
            # when one phrase matches, jump to the next
            next PHRASE if $line =~ /$rxPhrase/;
        }

        # end of file, and we haven't matched the last phrase
        return;
    }
    # We have just matched the last phrase.
    # The number we want is somewhere in $line.
    my ($number) = $line =~ /(\d+)/;

    return $number;
}



#my $result = search_phrase(db_conn1($var1,$var2,$var3,$var4));
my $result = &search_phrase('@newarray');
if (defined $result) {
    print "$result\n"
}
else {
    print "-1\n"

}
[download]

/users/myuser1/merc/test.txt total rows rejected: reject: total reject
+ed rows:
open: @newarray: A file or directory in the path name does not exist.
[download]

throws me an error, directory or path not found... but actually it does exists...

Are you sure?

$ cat 668658.pl
use strict;
use warnings;
use Data::Dumper;

sub f {
  my ($first, $second, $third) = @_;
  print "first:" . Dumper($first) . "\n";
  print "second:" . Dumper($second) . "\n";
  print "third:" . Dumper($third) . "\n";
}

my @arr = qw ( one two three );

f('@arr');
f(@arr);
__END__
[download]

$ perl 668658.pl
first:$VAR1 = '@arr';
second:$VAR1 = undef;
third:$VAR1 = undef;
first:$VAR1 = 'one';
second:$VAR1 = 'two';
third:$VAR1 = 'three';
[download]

--
Andreas