How can I search multiple files for a string in Perl?

Question

My question is probably simple but I'm a complete newbie. I want to search the contents of multiple text files for a particular phrase and then display the lines of the finds on screen. I've already learnt how to deal with a single file. For example, if I want to search for a word, say "Okay" in a text file named "wyvern.txt" in the root directory of F. The following code works:

#!/usr/bin/perl

$file = 'F:\wyvern.txt';
open(txt, $file);
while($line = <txt>) {
  print "$line" if $line =~ /Okay/;
}
close(txt);

But what should I do if I want to search for the same phrase in two text files, say "wyvern' and "casanova" respectively? or how about all the files in the directory "novels" in the root directory of F.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance

Mike

Edit:

Haha, I finally figured out how to search all the files in a directory for a pattern match:) The following code works great:

#!/usr/bin/perl  
@files = <F:/novels/*>;
foreach $file (@files) {
open   (FILE, "$file");
while($line= <FILE> ){
print "$line" if $line =~ /Okay/;
}
close FILE; 
} 

Answer 1

On a system where command line arguments are properly expanded, you can use:

[sinan@host:~/test]$ perl -ne 'print "$.:$_" if /config/' *
1:$(srcdir)/config/override.m4

The problem with Windows is:

C:\Temp> perl -ne "print if /perl/" *.txt
Can't open *.txt: Invalid argument.

On Windows, you could do:

C:\Temp> for %f in (*.txt) do perl -ne "print if /perl/" %f

But, you might just want to use cmd.exe builtin findstr or the grep command line tool.

Answer 2

Just a tweak on your line: <F:/novels/*>, I prefer to use the glob keyword - it works the same in this context and avoids the chances of confusing the many different uses of angle brackets in perl. Ie:

@files = glob "F:/novels/*";

See perldoc glob for more.