Re^3: Using elements to search a file

[jpearl]

That does make sense. However, I think your problem is in this loop:

            while ( <$contin> )
                    {
                    if ( $contractors =~ m/^$string(.*)/ )
                        {
                    my @results = split(m#\s+#, $1);
                    print br;
                    print @results;
                        }
                     }
            close( $contin );
                }

Specifically I think you're running into a problem at

if ( $contractors =~ m/^$string(.*)/ )

It looks like what you want to be doing is matching every line in $contin against your current $contractor where what you're actually doing is matching $contractor against your regex ^$string(.*) Try changing the above regex in the while loop to have something like

            while ( <$contin> )
                    {
                    if ($_ =~ m/^$contractor(.*)/)
                        {
                    my @results = split(m#\s+#, $1);
                    print br;
                    print @results;
                        }
                     }
            close( $contin );
                }

[GC]

That gets me a whole lot closer. It's spitting out every line in the file, but at least it's giving me something I can work with.

Thanks for getting me out of that hole, I appreciate the help.