if ( param('select') )  {  #If user selected an item from the drop down menu

   unless( grep  /^\Q$article\E$/, @menu_files )  #Unless user selection doesn't match one of the valid filenames within @menu_files
......}}
print param('select'), ' - ', length( param('select') ), br() x2;

foreach( @menu_files )
{
   my $match = ($_ eq param('select')) ? "matches" : "fails to match"; 
   
   print $_, ' - ', length( $_ ), ' - ', $match, br; 
}

Encode::from_to($article, 'utf8', 'ISO-8859-7');
open FILE, "<$ENV{'DOCUMENT_ROOT'}/data/text/$article.txt" or die $!;
........