1) Yes, the fact that the error is for a failed pattern match and not a failed 'eq' is doubly confusing. That's one reason I posted to Perlmonks. Check my profile, Rolf. I've been coding perl for 15 years. That's not a "Don't question me, I know what I'm doing" statement. It's an "I've been doing this for 1/3 of my life. Why is this simple thing suddenly so hard?" statement.

2) I'm sure I'm debugging the right file because when I add or remove lines from the file the line numbers in the output change. Moreover, if I change the text around the offending code those changes are reflected in the output.

3) I'm using perl v5.8.8 built for x86_64-linux-thread-multi.

I added a couple of extra checks and the results do point me in a direction. When I assign a string value to $oldString and test it with an eq (lines 80 - 89), no problem. If I assign the value with a call to $oldString = $allChanges->[$k]->getOldString(); the problem manifests. That's even more curious, because the call to print Dumper($oldString); at line 95 prints a simple string.

 80     local $oldString = "OLDSTRING";
 81     local $newString = "NEWSTRING";
 82     $logger->debug("oldString = (", $oldString, ")");
 83     $logger->debug("newString = (", $newString, ")");
 84     if ($oldString eq "OLDSTRING") {
 85         $logger->info("$oldString = $oldString");
 86     }
 87     else {
 88         $logger->info("No. $oldString != oldString");
 89     }
 90
 91     $oldString = $allChanges->[$k]->getOldString();
 92     $newString = $allChanges->[$k]->getNewString();
 93     $logger->debug("oldString = (", $oldString, ")");
 94     $logger->debug("newString = (", $newString, ")");
 95     print Dumper($oldString);
 96     sleep 1;
 97
 98     if ($oldString eq "Automated") {
 99         $logger->debug("old string = ", $oldString);
100         $logger->debug("new string = ", $newString);
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Results

INFO main:::79: Change 3 was to the Automated field of testCase HIREX-
+16863 on createdDate 2013-05-13 12:19:42 Old String = (To Be Automate
+d) New String = Ready For Integration
DEBUG main:::82: oldString = (OLDSTRING)
DEBUG main:::83: newString = (NEWSTRING)
INFO main:::84: OLDSTRING = OLDSTRING
DEBUG main:::93: oldString = (To Be Automated)
DEBUG main:::94: newString = (Ready For Integration)
$VAR1 = 'To Be Automated';
Use of uninitialized value in pattern match (m//) at weeklyAutomationC
+hanges.pl line 98.
Use of uninitialized value in pattern match (m//) at weeklyAutomationC
+hanges.pl line 98.
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