tm86:

Each time you use "my" you declare a new variable. So at the line in question, you're declaring a new variable called $notfound, and then testing it to see if it contains "not found" before you ever set it to a value.

Here's a quickie to show you what I mean:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use warnings;
my $s='the quick red fox';
print $s, "\n";
my $s='Foo';
print $s, "\n";
{
    my $s="Bar";
    print $s, "\n";
    my $s;
    print $s, "\n";
}
print $s, "\n";
[download]

When I run it, I get:

$ perl t.pl
"my" variable $s masks earlier declaration in same scope at t.pl line 
+5.
"my" variable $s masks earlier declaration in same scope at t.pl line 
+10.
the quick red fox
Foo
Bar
Use of uninitialized value $s in print at t.pl line 11.

Foo
[download]

There are several things to notice here:

• If you use warnings, perl will tell you when you declare a new variable that has the same name as one you already have (the first two lines of output from my script).
• When you start a new block, you can create a new version of a variable without perl giving you an error message (only two warnings for the four declarations).
• When a block goes out of scope, then the previously-hidden (masked) variable is available again. (The "Foo" at the end.)
• Immediately after creating a variable, it is undefined (the "use of uninitialized value" warning).

So you're close, but you need a couple tweaks:

#!/tools/packarch/public/perl/5.8.8/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
 
open(my $file,  "<",  "input.txt")  or die "Can't open input.txt: $!";
my $string = "icecream";
my $notfound = ""; 
while (<$file>)  
{
  if (/$string/)
  {
     print "found string $string\n";
  }
  else
  {
     $notfound = "not found";
  }
}
if ($notfound eq "not found")
{
  print "string not found\n";
}
[download]

As you can see, I put a declaration at the top and initialized it to "". Then removed all the extra declarations.

...roboticus

When your only tool is a hammer, all problems look like your thumb.

thanks! that worked like a charm. i understand the issue now... i seemed to be declaring it multiple times and no initialization. That will help my main code a lot!