I need to search for a text in a file
the file will contain text as follows

------------------------------------------------
sdasdgdgfdsf
dfghsdf
dhffd
dfdfdfdf

[applications]
/abc="/sas/asa/saas"
/def="/sdsd/sdsds/dsds/sdsd"

sdsd
----------------------------------------------
In this file
I need to search for a string in variable $a

i should be able to search only those lines which comes after the line[applications] and before the line sdsd.assume these two lines never change but the content in between keep changing but in the same pattern as shown.

if $a value matches with a string which starts with / and ends with =,ex abc
which comes between / and = or def or any other lines which appear below it, it should say string exists else string does not exist

This is only an outline logic.

- Number all the lines in the file
- Find the line number of the header and the corresponding footer
- Read only those lines between these two lines

Tip: May use cat -n, head, tail

Typical job for a perl script.