problem reading file in while loop

[jowatkins]

hi,

I'm a complete newbie at perl and was hoping somebody might be able to help me a problem I'm having.
Here is the code:

sub get_partnumber
{
my ($file, $ref) = @_;
my $pn;
print "$ref\t";
while (<$file>)
{
print &quot;$ref\n&quot;;
if ($_ =~ /$ref/)
{
/([0-9]{9}|T[0-9]{8})/; #get the part number
$pn= $1;
}
else
{
$pn = 0;
}
}
return $pn;
}

I thought at first that this is a scope problem, and that the $ref variable wasn't available within the while loop. However, itseems that the code isn't going into the while loop at all. I can't think of any reason for this. Can somebody suggest a way to fix it?

Thanks in advance, Jo

 

[justice41]

How are you calling the subroutine? Is $file the name of a file or a filehandle? If its the name of a file then you have to open the file first and loop over the filehandle.

jaa