Eliminating lines begining with TAB

[ale77]

Hi
I have a script that reads data in this format:
6PA4345345 545 445 445
3IK3413755 546 545 454
456OL74346 768 545 455
TOTAL 434

I want only the first column of every line, so I'm using substr($line,10,0). The problem is when it reads the " TOTAL" line because it has a TAB as the first character. How can I detect the tab character?

I though something like:

if ( index($prev_line, "/t", 0)) != -1)
print HANDLE_CUSIPFILEOUT "$prev_line\n"

but of course is not working.
Hope someone gives me an idea. Thanks

 

[mikevh]

It's \t, not /t.

 

[ale77]

Thanks, but that was not the error because I typed like that in here, in the program was ok.
I made it work using "unless" instead of "if".