You're most of the way there; just define your variable outside the loop and then add the lines to it. Check out the lines I added to your code below. You'll want to use one method or the other, depending on whether you want the lines in an array or as a single string in a scalar.
open(F, "file");
my $lines = ''; # a scalar to store the lines in
my @lines; # an array to store the lines in
while(<F>) {
if (/StartPattern/.../StopPattern/) {
$lines .= $_; # append the line to my scalar
push @lines, $_; # add the line to my array
}
}
close(F);
Aaron B.
Available for small or large Perl jobs and *nix system administration; see my home node.