Perl-Matching from a file [Help]

Hello all
i have this peace of code
open(RULES,'rules.txt') or die $!;
my @rules = <RULES>;
close RULES or die $!;

foreach my $rule(@rules) {
if ($request =~ m/$rule/i) {
open(ERROR,"error.html");
my @error=<ERROR>;
close(ERROR);
foreach $line(@error){
print C $line;
}

it match a text from a file or 'rules' written by regular expressions with a request
but the problem that it's matching only the first line
i mean my rules file content
\.txt
that will match any .txt extension but when i add nother line
like
\.txt
\.php
it matchs only .txt
please i really need help

Need sample data from the rules.txt file and what is the value of $request?

I'd have it print out @rules, make sure all the lines are getting into the array.

assuming there's anything in the file the array should be populated.

I'm with Kevin, the question is about matching, so we'd need to see the data to match ...