Read in all the records into an array of hashes. Then you can decide how to re-format/sort them them.
Here's a simple parser based on what your format seems to be:
my @list;
while (<>) {
chomp;
my (%hash, @rest);
($hash{first}, $hash{date}, @rest) = split(",", $_);
for my $r (@rest) {
my ($k, $v) = split(' ', $r, 2);
$hash{$k} = $v;
}
push(@list, \%hash);
}
Now it doesn't matter what order the fields are in. To determine all the fields present in any of the records, you can use:
my %seen;
for (@list) { for (keys %$_) { $seen{$_}++ } };
delete $seen{first};
delete $seen{date};
my @allkeys = ('first', 'date', sort keys %seen);
I'm just assuming that you want the first two fields to remain where they are. The rest will be sorted alphabetically.
-
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.