Please edit your node to add "code" tags around your code segments because it is difficult to read. See Writeup Formatting Tips. And it is good form to post the actual code that you are using, i.e., code that compiles (you meant die instead of "dir", etc.).

Since parsing XML is tricky business, it is a good idea to use one of the CPAN modules to do it for you. There is a learning curve, but it's well worth the effort. I recommend XML::Twig.

Having said that, one way to get the next line after a matching line is to use a while loop instead of a foreach loop, as follows (untested):

while (<>) {
   if (/name/) {
      print;
      my $next_line = <>;
      # do something with $next_line ...
   }
}
[download]

Some more miscellaneous observations:

• It is good that you use strict;. You might as well toss in use warnings; while you're at it.
• It is good practice to use lexical filehandles, the 3-argument form of open and print the error message ($!):

  open my $fh, '<', $file or die "can not open $file:  $!";
  while <$fh> {
     ...
  }
  [download]

• Since you are anchoring the regex in the substiution (^), there is no reason for the g modifier. This would suffice: s/^\s+//

Toolic, Thanks so much for taking the time to look at this and the recomendations. Here is a snippet from my XML file:

<script type="ApplicationPerspective" version="5.3.13.179" recorder="8
+.6.59.276" sav="25" guid="296A95D0-E8B6-4989-AA21-126796A3AD3F" xmlns
+="http://www.keynote.com/namespaces/tstp/script">
    <name>
        <![CDATA[GT Amadeus]]>
    </name>
.......

    <actions>
        <action FrameErrorFatal="1" MetaErrorFatal="1">
            <name>
                <![CDATA[Home Page]]>
            </name>
            <description>
                <![CDATA[]]>
            </description>
[download]

I have started looking at XML:Twig. I need to be able to pull the CDATA in between the <name> tags. Here is my sample XML:Twig code right now:

#!/usr/bin/perl

use XML::Twig;

my $file = $ARGV[0];
my $twig= new XML::Twig(TwigRoots => {script/name' => 1});
$twig->parsefile($file);
$twig->print;
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Something like this?

use strict;
use warnings;
use XML::Twig;

my $xmlStr = <<XML;
<script type="ApplicationPerspective" version="5.3.13.179" recorder="8
+.6.59.276" sav="25" guid="296A95D0-E8B6-4989-AA21-126796A3AD3F" xmlns
+="http://www.keynote.com/namespaces/tstp/script">
    <name>
        <![CDATA[GT Amadeus]]>
    </name>
    <actions>
        <action FrameErrorFatal="1" MetaErrorFatal="1">
            <name>
                <![CDATA[Home Page]]>
            </name>
            <description>
                <![CDATA[]]>
            </description>
        </action>
    </actions>
</script>
XML

my $twig = new XML::Twig( 
    twig_handlers => { name => \&name }
);               
$twig->parse($xmlStr);

sub name {
    my ($twig, $name) = @_;
    my $stuff = $name->text();            
    print "$stuff\n";
}

__END__

GT Amadeus
Home Page
[download]

Perhaps if you post a (smallish but significant) extract of your XML file and the result you expect, we can give you more guidance.

In general, XML files have no concept of "next line". Whitespace, linefeeds, ... should be irrelevant for XML (a few exceptions notwithstanding). It is all tags and only tags that really count. Expecting some data to be "on the next line" is not guaranteed to work. It is the format not the form that you have to work with.