in reply to Perl beginner here, needs a shove in the right direction.
I wouldn't recommend slurping the files, since you want to look at individual lines. Just go through the files one by one, checking each file line-by-line. Since you're looking for design guidance rather than code, the logic would go something like this:
create a hash which has the keywords to watch for as its keys foreach file (probably using File::Find) do open file (error check) foreach line in file split the line into fields is the first field from this line in my hash of important keyw +ords? if yes, are there empty or dash fields in this line? if yes, report this file (and keyword and/or line number, optionally +) and move on to next file end of lines close file end of files
Take a look at File::Find; all the indented code above would be part of the callback you'd pass to File::Find's find() method.
Aaron B.
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