Perl variables becoming empty in if statement - perl

Question

This is driving me crazy, Perl is simply losing the value of a variable once I enter an if statement... and the weird this is, its only that variable, any other variable will not lose its value
open (MYFILE, "b");
my $haysack = "";
while (<MYFILE>)
{
$haysack = $haysack . "$_";
}
close (MYFILE);
open (MYFILE2, "ip_range");
my $needles = "";
while (<MYFILE2>)
{
$needles = $needles . "$_";
}
close (MYFILE2);
my $someOtherValue = "blabla";
while ($needles =~ m/(.*?)\n/g)
{
$needle = $1;
if ($haysack =~ m/$needle/ims)
{
print "FOUND : $needle\n";
print "$someOtherValue\n";
}
}
So the code succesfully enters the if statement, but once it does I get the following output:
FOUND:
blabla
can anyone help?

Answer 1

This really should be a comment, since it's not an answer, but comments don't allow code formatting, so:
Can you provide a complete, runnable, self-contained, minimal example which demonstrates the problem without extraneous moving parts, such as reading files? Something similar to the following:
#!/usr/bin/env perl
use strict;
use warnings;
my $haysack = "Foo
Bar
Baz
";
my $needles = "a
b
c
";
while ($needles =~ m/(.*?)\n/g) {
my $needle = $1;
if ($haysack =~ m/$needle/ims) {
print "FOUND : $needle\n";
}
}
...except that mine runs perfectly, producing the output
FOUND : a
FOUND : b
rather than failing. Note that, in the process of creating a minimal failing example, you are very likely to discover the solution to your problem...
As far as general troubleshooting advice, use strict and use warnings if you aren't already doing so. Check the value of $1 after doing the outer match to verify that $needle will be getting the value you expect it to.