in reply to Using elements to search a file

Well, you separate out:
my @contractors = split(m#\s+#, $1);

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where $1 is actually everything after $string. But then you try in your while( <$contin> ) { loop  if ( $contractors =~ m/^$string(.*)/ ) Depsite the fact that @contractors has already been regexed away from $string. Its hard to visualize without seeing some example input and output you are after, but you might not want to be matching $string multiple times like that, especially if $contractors is just an element of the array of stuff *after* $string.

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Re^2: Using elements to search a file
by GC (Initiate) on May 06, 2009 at 17:55 UTC
    Example:

    User input: 11111

    Will find this line in the first file: 11111 1010101 1010102 1010103 1010104 1010105 1010106

    Which puts: 1010101 1010102 1010103 1010104 1010105 1010106 into an array.

    Each of those will be used as search criteria in the second file, the irst should read this line: 1010101 Address Line 1 ,Address Line 2 ,Phone Number ,Fax Number,

    So I can print the information.

    If that makes sense.

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      That does make sense. However, I think your problem is in this loop: 
                  while ( <$contin> )
                    {
                    if ( $contractors =~ m/^$string(.*)/ )
                        {
                    my @results = split(m#\s+#, $1);
                    print br;
                    print @results;
                        }
                     }
            close( $contin );
                }

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      Specifically I think you're running into a problem at 
      if ( $contractors =~ m/^$string(.*)/ )

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      It looks like what you want to be doing is matching every line in $contin against your current $contractor where what you're actually doing is matching $contractor against your regex ^$string(.*) Try changing the above regex in the while loop to have something like 
                  while ( <$contin> )
                    {
                    if ($_ =~ m/^$contractor(.*)/)
                        {
                    my @results = split(m#\s+#, $1);
                    print br;
                    print @results;
                        }
                     }
            close( $contin );
                }

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[d/l]
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        That gets me a whole lot closer. It's spitting out every line in the file, but at least it's giving me something I can work with.

        Thanks for getting me out of that hole, I appreciate the help.

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