Thanks, geektron - that was it!   Well, that or I forgot to use Do::WhatImean   ;^)

Here's what ended up working:

use Getopt::Long;
GetOptions( 'infile|i=s'  => \$opt_infile, );

if (defined $opt_infile) {
    $file{in} = $opt_infile;
    open (INFILE, "< $file{in}") or die "Error opening $file{in}: $!";
    @targets = <INFILE>;
    close INFILE or die "Error closing $file{in}: $!";
    } else { die "Input file not specified!"; }

foreach my $nonsane(@targets) {
    chomp $nonsane;
    unless ($nonsane =~ (/^(\w|-|\.)+$/)) {
        print "  $nonsane is an improperly formatted device name.\n";
        print "  Only alphanumeric, underscore, dash and dot allowed.\
+n";
        print "  Edit $file{in} to remove puctuation, blank lines and/
+or blank spaces.\n";
        exit;
        }
    }
[download]

    cheers,
    Don
    striving toward Perl Adept
    (it's pronounced "why-bick")