in reply to
parsing data in a file
You should be programming defensively here:
my ($fname,$lname) = split(" ",$name);
Instead of that, I'd recommend
# If there are two names separated by a space ..
my ($fname,$lname);
if ( $name =~ /\w+\s\w+/ ) {
# Separate them into first and last names.
($fname,$lname) = split(" ",$name);
} else {
# Otherwise, decide what to do with just a single name.
# Use the name as a last name? Die? Ignore?
}
Don't assume that your input's always going to be clean.
Alex / talexb / Toronto
"Groklaw is the open-source mentality applied to legal research" ~ Linus Torvalds