Proposed correction

[jmrhide-perl]

for (my $loopiter = 0; $loopiter < $loopmax; $loopiter++) { #1
             if ($loopiter >= ($loopmax - 1)) { die "Loop number $loopnum has 
iterated $loopiter times" }
             $termnum[0] = int( rand($defnum) );
             last unless ( $termnum[0] == $lastnum );
             }
            $loopnum++;

This may be ugly, but the first line adapts something in perlsyn:

for (my $i = 0; $i < @ary1; $i++) {Leaving aside other concerns, for the 
moment, 
is there a better way to write that first line?

 John M Rathbun MD