use strict; use warnings; open (RD, "input.txt") or die; my $input; do{ local undef $/; ######To undef the input record separator '$/' $input=; }; #####To read the whole file in single scalar variable open (WR2, ">>output.txt") or die; my $count=0; my $C="2001-1041"; while($input =~ /$C/g) { $count++; } print WR2 "$count=$C\n" unless($count);