KevinR, thanks it is working great. I do have a couple questions though.
my ($key, $value) = split(/\s+/,$line,2);
In this code above how exactly does this split statement work with the two variables. If I understand it correctly, it splits the lines by more than one white space.
What I don't understand is why do you have 2 vars declared beforehand. and after the match, why is there $line and 2? Why is 2 there?
Lets say I wanted to take the value from this hash and compare it to another piece of data later in the text to confirm that it is the correct #.
Thank you for your help KevinR.