Exercise (Learning Perl, 3rd Edition)

17.7. Exercise

[30] Make a program that reads a list of strings from a file, one string per line, and then lets the user interactively enter patterns that may match some of the strings. For each pattern, the program should tell how many strings from the file matched, then which ones those were. Don't re-read the file for each new pattern; keep the strings in memory. The filename may be hard-coded in the file. If a pattern is invalid (for example, if it has unmatched parentheses), the program should simply report that error and let the user continue trying patterns. When the user enters a blank line instead of a pattern, the program should quit. (If you need a file full of interesting strings to try matching, try the file sample_text in the files you've surely downloaded by now from the O'Reilly website; see the Preface.)