$messages = "N/A"; open(MYINPUTFIL3, "file path"); while(){ chomp; $SYS=$_; $SYS =~ s/\r|\n//g; if($SYS =~ /search string/i) { $message_1=$SYS ; $message_1 =~ s/\r|\n//g; $message_1=~ s/^\s+//; $message_1=~ s/\s+$//; $message_11 = $message_1; $message_12 = $message_1; $message_12 = s/[^a-zA-Z]*//g; $message_11 =~ s/[^0-9.]*//g; last; } } close MYINPUTFIL3; print "$message_1\n"; open(FILEWRITE, ">>trial_one.txt"); print FILEWRITE "$message_1\n"; close (FILEWRITE);