I want to thank everyone for their help. I think I have figured out. The following code searches a test file for a phrase, when it finds it, it reads in the very next line, and prints it out. Then the next 2 lines are skipped, and finally the last line is printed. I am posting it here for review, and would appreciate any comments. I would like to note my use of the "readline" function. According to the docs I found, it only works from within a while loop. Anyway Thanks again. 
$success = 0;
open(FILE,"dumptape.log") or die ("Could not open file");
while(<FILE>) {
  if (/Dump phase number 3/) {
    while (<FILE>) {
    readline(<FILE>);
    print;
    <FILE> ;
    }    
#
    print; 
    $success = 1;
    last;
  }
}
if(!$success) { 
  print "Failed dump log\n"; 
  #do other failed dump log stuff here
}
close FILE;

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In reply to Extracting Text Lines by mikevanhoff

Title:
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