foreach (keys %hash_table) {
    if ($_ eq $ordnum) {
[download]

if ( defined( $hash_table{ $ordnum } ) ) {
[download]

Thanks apl! Still muddling through this. When I do a data dumper my hash looks like this:

$VAR1 = {
'MIXORD077768' => 'MIXORD077769'
};
[download]

What's mixing me up is why the hash is mapping like that? The data in the partlist.txt file is:

MIXORD077769
MIXORD077768
[download]

Here's my code which still isn't working quite right. Please forgive my non use of strict... I'll clean that up when the functionality works. Partlist contains:

MIXORD077768
MIXORD077769
[download]

#!/bin/perl

#use strict;
#allows use of the copy and move commands for files
use File::Copy;
#allows for parsing words
use Text::ParseWords;
use Win32::ODBC;
use Time::Local;
use POSIX;
use Data::Dumper;
#for emailing errors
use Net::SMTP;

# oracle uid and pw
my $user= 'test';
my $passwd = 'test';


#######Prod Variables
my $outbox = "D:\\scripts\\outbox\\";
my $archive = "D:\\scripts\\archive\\";
my $log = "D:\\scripts\\log\\log.txt";
my $partlist = "D:\\scripts\\partlist.txt";

#put view for in an array to loop through each db
@datasources = ("my_datasource");

       
foreach $datasource (@datasources) {
    
#open logfile
open(LOG_FILE, ">>$log")||die "Can't open file: $!";
print LOG_FILE ("begin\n");
        
#initiate DB
($Db) = new Win32::ODBC("DSN=$datasource;UID=$user;PWD=$passwd");
if (!$Db){
print LOG_FILE ("Could not open connection to DSN because of [$!]\n");
die "Could not open connection to DSN because of [$!]";
print LOG_FILE ($Db->Error()."\n");
print ($Db->Error()."\n");
}
## populate the string that will be used for the SQL query 
my $statement;
$statement = "SELECT DISTINCT a.ordnum ORDNUM, a.shipid SHIPID, a.date
+ DATE";
$statement = $statement." FROM new_view a";
$statement = $statement." order by ORDNUM";

$Db->Sql($statement);


##Step through each returned row
while ($Db ->FetchRow()) {
    my (%dataRow) = $Db->DataHash();
        
    my $ordnum = $dataRow{'ORDNUM'};
    my $shipid = $dataRow{'SHIPID'};
    my $date = $dataRow{'DATE'};
    #set custmoer variable for 
    if ($shipid eq '12345678') {
        $customer='CUSTOMER1';
    }
    else {
        $customer='OTHERS';
    }

    #put date in zulu format
    my $date_z = substr($dataRow{'DATE'},0,10)."T".substr($dataRow{'DA
+TE'},-8).".000-0000";

    




    #get the parts that have already been printed
    open(PARTS, $partlist) || die "Can't open file: $!";
    chomp(@PARTS = <PARTS>);
      
    %hash_table = (@PARTS);
    close PARTS;

if ( defined( $hash_table{ $ordnum } ) ) {        

#??

        }
else

    {
    my $verifile = $outbox.$ordnum.".dat";

    ##Open output file to write to 
    open(OUTPUT_FILE, ">>$verifile")||die "Can't open file: $!";
    print OUTPUT_FILE ".$ordnum.",".",".$shipid.","."".$customer.",".d
+ate_z."\n";            
    close OUTPUT_FILE;

    } #end if part defined

    #add the part to the text file so we don't print it in the future
my $partfile = $partlist;
open(OUTPUT_FILE, ">>$partfile")||die "Can't open file: $!";
print OUTPUT_FILE $ordnum."\n";
close OUTPUT_FILE;
close LOG_FILE;
        

}# end of while FetchRow


    
$Db->Close();        
    


}#end for each datasource
[download]