#! perl use strict; use warnings; while () { chomp; my $invalid = tr{- _,:./"0-9a-zA-Z}{}c; print "Found $invalid invalid characters in:\n$_\n" if $invalid; } __DATA__ This line is OK. 2749 "CQWERC20F+XZIAQAAAQjLiDI9sNc=", "1","ds_uid","CWER1Y1mHZIAQAA8diwRHfuwrM=","2012-10-14 18:41:44.429","2012-10-14 18:41:44.572","1975-10-10 00:00:00.000","7307 mg rd","","naasik","NK","44026","IN","4406359999","","","","DEFAULT","","","AABBCCXX","","Qqwwee","","qqwwee@yahoo.com","0","YOPANEL","","false","en","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","" This line is OK too: abc123-_,:./" #### 22:35 >perl 1012_SoPW.pl Found 6 invalid characters in: 2749 "CQWERC20F+XZIAQAAAQjLiDI9sNc=", "1","ds_uid","CWER1Y1mHZIAQAA8diwRHfuwrM=","2012-10-14 18:41:44.429","2012-10-14 18:41:44.572","1975-10-10 00:00:00.000","7307 mg rd","","naasik","NK","44026","IN","4406359999","","","","DEFAULT","","","AABBCCXX","","Qqwwee","","qqwwee@yahoo.com","0","YOPANEL","","false","en","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","" 22:35 >