my $var;
while (...) {
   ++$var;
   ...
}
[download]

my $var;
while (...) {
   ++$var;
   ...
   if ($var % 3 == 0) {
      # Stuff for every third pass.
      ...
   }
}
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my $count = 0;
while (..whatever..){
     $count++;     
     #do stuff
     last if $count == 3;     
}
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I may have misunderstood your message. Only use the last statement if you wish to exit the loop.Otherwise ikegami has the correct code/solution.
apologies for any confusion

s;;5776?12321=10609$d=9409:12100$xx;;s;(\d*);push @_,$1;eg;map{print chr(sqrt($_))."\n"} @_;

Okay, I'll try to be clearer here. I've stripped out some code but here is the basics of what I have:

$SQL = "SELECT * FROM $database_table order by date DESC, ID DESC limi
+t 10";
$sth = $dbh->prepare($SQL);
$sth->execute;
        
       
           
open(TXTFILE, ">$rootpath$categoryDir$frontPage"); 

while ($pointer = $sth->fetchrow_hashref) {
            $fullpath = $pointer->{'fullfilepath'};
            $name = $pointer->{'filename'};
            $thumbnail = $pointer->{'thumbnail'};
            $image = $pointer->{'image'};
            $imagewidth = $pointer->{'imagewidth'};
            $headlinelink = $pointer->{'headlinelink'};



print TXTFILE <<TEXT;
<a href=$url NOUNDERLINE id="headline"><font size="+1" face=arial>$tit
+le</font></a><br>
<font size="1">$category - $month $day, $year $catsiteshow</font><br>

TEXT
}
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That gives me one text file with 10 headlines formatted how I want it. I'd like to be able insert an ad after the thrid or 4th headline. So I either need a way to print each headline to a separate txt file so that I can include them all in the HTML page manually, or a way to write something into the txt file after the third headline. Make sense? Thanks.