Since every product comes in different quantities, you might need to reckon the monthly price that you would have to pay for taking such medicines. But not only does it depend on the products but also in the way that you might be consuming them. So, just try this one-liner to know how expensive is your recovery.

You need to first, write a text file with the required data for each product. Each line should have the name of the medicine, then a tab character, then the number of units of consumption that the product has (that is, 30 pills/tablets/doses/drinks/etc., and finally another tab character with its price.

Then, the one-liner reads that file and keeps asking the number of units that you consume each day of a 31 days month (the worse of the cases). Array @precio (@prices in English) holds each line of your file. Scalar $acumes ($monthacum in English) should keep on summing the final ammount. Every element of the @precio array is split by \t (tab char) into the three original values. Those would be used to ask for the daily dose, and to deduct the price per dose and each monthly cost.

These partials would be displayed as well as summed up. Then finally, the total ammount should be displayed between two lines of equal signs.

Do you like it? These days, I find it very useful :( .

(update: now, here, apples are a bit expensive... that's why I am sick! :) )

>cat medicines.txt

Powder-A 400 gr.       30      70.18
Liquid-A D20           30      33.83
Atomizer 25 mg         56      12.60
Apples                 50      63.65
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>perl -e"my @precio;open PR,'medicines.txt';@precio=<PR>;close PR;chom
+p(@precio);print(\"\n** MEDICINE PRICES BY DOSES PER MONTH **\n\n\");
+my $acumes;foreach my $li (@precio){next if ($li=~/^[_#\W]/);my ($med
+,$uni,$pre)=split(/\t/,$li);my $dos;print('Daily dose of ',$med,'? =>
+');$dos=<>;$dos=~s/[^\d\.]//g;my $tot=sprintf(\"%6.2f\",$pre/$uni*$do
+s*31);print('  Costs.................',\" \t\t\t$tot \$\/month.\n\");
+$acumes+=$tot;}my $lit=\"\nTotal to spend with medicines every month:
+      $acumes \$\n\";print('=' x length($lit),$lit, '=' x length($lit
+),\"\n\");"
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The output:

** MEDICINE PRICES BY DOSES PER MONTH **

Daily dose of Powder-A 400 gr.  ? =>1
  Costs.................                         72.52 $/month.
Daily dose of Liquid-A D20      ? =>0.5
  Costs.................                         17.48 $/month.
Daily dose of Atomizer 25 mg    ? =>1
  Costs.................                          6.98 $/month.
Daily dose of Apples            ? =>2
  Costs.................                         78.93 $/month.
==========================================================
Total to spend with medicines every month:      175.91 $
==========================================================
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Edited by GrandFather to change medicine names

Update with date of renewal of every medicine + better formating (LINUX users)

Final Output

** MEDICINE PRICES BY DOSES PER MONTH (21-January-2006)**

Daily dose of Powder-A 400 gr.                          (1.. 30)? =>1
  Costs.................             72.52$/month [Buy Next:20-Februar
+y-2006  ]
Daily dose of Liquid-A D20                              (1.. 30)? =>3
  Costs.................            104.87$/month [Buy Next:31-January
+-2006   ]
Daily dose of Atomizer 25 mg                            (1.. 56)? =>1
  Costs.................              6.98$/month [Buy Next:18-March-2
+006     ]
Daily dose of Apples                                    (1.. 50)? =>10
  Costs.................            394.63$/month [Buy Next:26-January
+-2006   ]
 ============================================
|Medicine Monthly Total 2 spend :   579.00$  |
 ============================================
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1) A text file with fields separated by '|' chars

cat <<EOF >medicines.txt
## PRODUCT      |NUM.DOSES|PRICE
##--------------+---------+-----
Powder-A 400 gr.|30|70.18
Liquid-A D20|30|33.83
Atomizer 25 mg|56|12.60
Apples|50|63.65
EOF
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2) Perl one-liner commented

perl -MPOSIX -e'
my ($tnow,$gday)=(time,int(60*60*24)); ## MANUAL WAY OF FINDING FUTURE
+ DATES
my (@precio);                          ## GETTING THE DATA TO PROCESS
open MED,"medicines.txt" or die("file does not open...$!");
 @precio=(<MED>);
close MED;
chomp(@precio);                       ## PRINTING HEADING WITH TODAY'S
+ DATE
print("\n** MEDICINE PRICES BY DOSES PER MONTH (".strftime("%d-%B-%Y",
+localtime).")**\n\n");
my ($acumes);
foreach my $li (@precio)              ## ASKING FOR DAILY DOSES AND PR
+INTING PARTIALS AND DATES
{
 next if ($li=~/^[_#\W]/);            ## SKIP COMMENTS
 my ($med,$uni,$pre)=split(/\|/,$li); ## GET FIELDS: PRODUCT,UNITS,PRI
+CE
 my $dos;
 printf("Daily dose of %-40s  (1..%3i)? =>",$med,$uni);## GET DAILY DO
+SE
 $dos=<STDIN>;
 $dos=~s/[^\d\.]//g;                  ## CLEAN INPUT
 my $tot=sprintf("%6.2f",$pre/$uni*$dos*31);## PARTIAL CONSIDERING 31 
+DAYS IN A MONTH
 printf("  Costs................. \t %9.2f\$/month [Buy Next:%-18s]$/"
+,$tot,strftime("%d-%B-%Y",localtime($tnow+int($uni/$dos*$gday))));## 
+PARTIAL RESULT
 $acumes+=$tot
}
my $lit=sprintf("\n\|Medicine Monthly Total 2 spend :%9.2f\$\  |$/", $
+acumes);
print(" ","=" x (length($lit)-4),$lit," ", "=" x (length($lit)-4),"\n"
+);## PRINTING TOTAL
'
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