use strict;
use warnings;

my $flag1 = 0;
my $flag2 = 0;
my @lines;
while (<DATA>) {
    $flag2 = 1 if $flag1 and /A1/;
    $flag1 = 1 if /SUBSCRIBER/;
    push @lines, $_ if $flag1;
    if (/NATIONAL/) {
        print @lines if $flag2;
        $flag1 = 0;
        $flag2 = 0;
        @lines = ();
    }
}

__DATA__
foo
bar
SUBSCRIBER
goo
hoo
nada
NATIONAL

SUBSCRIBER
goo
A1
NATIONAL
junk
junk
junk
[download]

SUBSCRIBER
goo
A1
NATIONAL
[download]

Update: Ok, here's my solution with Range Operators:

use strict;
use warnings;

my $flag = 0;
my @lines;
while (<DATA>) {
    if (/SUBSCRIBER/ .. /NATIONAL/) {
        push @lines, $_;
        $flag = 1 if /A1/;
        if (/NATIONAL/) {
            print @lines if $flag; 
            $flag = 0;
            @lines = ();
        }
    }
}
[download]

Here is an example of my input file and these follow the same structure over and over:

SUBSCRIBER DEMOGRAPHIC INFORMATION

BIRTHDATE GENDER MEMBER IDENTIFICATION NUMBER

NAME

XXXXXXXXX

TRACE NUMBER: XXXXXXXX

CLAIM CLAIM PAYORS CLAIM NUMBER: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

PERIOD BEG PERIOD END MEDICAL RECORD NUMBER: 01/14/2010 01/14/2010 BILLING TYPE:

EFFECTIVE ADJUDICATION PAYMENT CHARGE PAYMENT CHECK STATUS DATE PAYMENT DATE METHOD AMOUNT AMOUNT CHECK DATE NUMBER 02/01/2010 XX.XX 0.00

CLAIM LEVEL STATUS CATEGORY: A1 STATUS: 19

MODIFIER: PR PAGE: 11 CLINIC # XXXXXX (C980 ) XXXXXX REPORT NO: CPR601.01 SOMEINSURANCE HEALTH CARE CLAIM STATUS NOTIFICATION ISA CONTROL NO: XXXXXXXXXX ISA PROCESS DATE: 10/02/02 ISA PROCESS TIME: 04:52 GROUP CONTROL NO: XXXXXX ST CONTROL NO: XXXXXXXXX BHT REFERENCE ID: XXXXXXXXX BHT DATE: 02/02/2010 PAYOR NAME: SOMEINSURANCE ID: XXXXX PROVIDER NAME: XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXX XXXXX XX

NATIONAL PROVIDER ID: XXXXXXXXXX

I need everythin between SUBSCRIBER DEMOGRAPHIC - NATIONAL PROVIDER ID only if the CLAIM STATUS CATEGORY CODE is other than A1 (A3, A4, F2...there's a bunch).

Here is the code I have so far.

use strict;
use warnings;

open TEST, "tests.txt" or die $!;
open OUTPUT, "> output1.txt" or die$!;



my @data;
my $data;



while (<TEST>) {

    if (/SUBSCRIBER DEMOGRAPHIC/../CLAIM LEVEL STATUS CATEGORY/)
        {   @data = $_;
        next; 


    foreach ( $data, @data) {
        
        if ($data =~ /A1/) {    
            print OUTPUT @data;
            }
            
            
}
}

}


close TEST;
close OUTPUT;
[download]

This code gets me no errors in syntax when I run it but I get 0 KB output file. Please Help!!

That worked a lot better. I just realized that the text file I'm parsing has those regular expressions occurring all over the place so I have to refine the ones in my code. This is a great start and I'm sure I'll be back once I refine those expressions. Thanks for all the help!!

You might benefit from something in My Favourite Regex Tools.

HTH,

planetscape

print OUTPUT $line;
[download]

That does print out the one line to output, but if the A1 code matches I want all the text between SUBSCRIBER and NATIONAL to print to output.

This should be close to what you require:

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

open TEST,   '<', 'tests.txt'   or die "Cannot open 'tests.txt' $!";
open OUTPUT, '>', 'output1.txt' or die "Cannot open 'output1.txt' $!";

my $data;
while ( <TEST> ) {
    if ( /SUBSCRIBER/ .. /NATIONAL/ ) {
        $data .= $_;
        next;
        }
    if ( length $data && $data =~ /A1/ ) {
        print OUTPUT $data;
        $data = '';
        }
    }

close TEST;
close OUTPUT;
[download]

This works great for the tests.txt file, but whenever I change the input file to something else I get an unitialized value $data in pattern match line 16 error, and I don't know why. Any help is greatly appreciated!!