mmhhh, different possibilites that this doesn't work

• try if this works:

  use strict;
  use warnings;
  
  my @list;
  
  while(<DATA>) {
      chomp;
      push @list, $_;
  }
  
  my $i="harv";
  
  foreach my $list (@list) {
      if($i eq $list) {
          print "YES!\n";
      }
  }
  
  __DATA__
  fred
  20.4
  harv
  5.6
  tony
  5.13
  dennis
  401.1
  [download]

  The DATA section behaves exactly like a file - inside your file and you don't have to open it. If it does then
• check if your file opened correctly (and specify the opening mode): open (FILE, "<", "input.dat") or die "Couldn't open input.dat: $!"; The die will abort the program if 'input.dat' couldn't be opened. The $! variable contains an error message and is set automatically if an error during the open occured.
• You should use strict; and use warnings; (equivalent to perl -w). It protects you from typing mistakes - there aren't any in your example, this is more general advice. And it shows useful warnings if you do some possibly 'stupid' things.

-- Hofmator