use Fcntl; use SDBM_File; my %db_names; tie (%db_names, 'SDBM_File', './names.db', O_RDWR | O_CREAT, 0666); print "Enter your name--> "; chomp (my $name = ); if(defined $db_names{$name}){ print "Your name was already found\n"; }else{ print "Name not found. Would you like to add it? (y/n)--> "; chomp (my $yn = ); if ($yn eq 'y') { $db_names{$name}=1; } } untie %db_names;