Here is an example input file test.txt:
D,642,0642,UBF,EVL,,M,,S,S,FOREVER,213,213,
D,642,0642,UBF,EVL,,M,,S,S,QSP-U=C,4,4,
D,642,0642,UBF,EVL,,M,,S,S,123456,4,4,
D,642,0642,UBF,EVL,,M,,S,S,12345,4,4,
where the fields are separated by a comma.
For example,
FOREVER above is the eleventh field.
This is just a guess based on your description.
Please correct me if this is wrong.
Given the above assumption, the following one-liner:
perl -nlaF/,/ -e 'length($F[10]) < 7 and print' test.txt
prints to stdout:
D,642,0642,UBF,EVL,,M,,S,S,123456,4,4,
D,642,0642,UBF,EVL,,M,,S,S,12345,4,4,
i.e. prints out only those lines where the eleventh
field is less than seven characters in length.
See perlrun for details of the -a and -F
command line switches to perl.
Once you are happy that works and meets the spec. you could
add the -i switch to auto-edit the file.
-
Are you posting in the right place? Check out Where do I post X? to know for sure.
-
Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags. Currently these include the following:
<code> <a> <b> <big>
<blockquote> <br /> <dd>
<dl> <dt> <em> <font>
<h1> <h2> <h3> <h4>
<h5> <h6> <hr /> <i>
<li> <nbsp> <ol> <p>
<small> <strike> <strong>
<sub> <sup> <table>
<td> <th> <tr> <tt>
<u> <ul>
-
Snippets of code should be wrapped in
<code> tags not
<pre> tags. In fact, <pre>
tags should generally be avoided. If they must
be used, extreme care should be
taken to ensure that their contents do not
have long lines (<70 chars), in order to prevent
horizontal scrolling (and possible janitor
intervention).
-
Want more info? How to link
or How to display code and escape characters
are good places to start.