my $last_time = 0; my $current_tide = "We have a problem!"; foreach my $tides (@{$data->{data}->{item}}) { my $format_date = "$tides->{date} $tides->{time}"; my $date_to_seconds = str2time($format_date); if( $date_to_seconds > $last_time and $date_to_seconds < $now_in_seconds ) { $tides->{highlow} =~ s/L/Low/; $tides->{highlow} =~ s/H/High/; $current_tide = " Test: ".$tides->{highlow}." Tide at: ".$tides->{time}; $last_time = $date_to_seconds; } } print "$current_tide\n";