Re: can't use unpack or split??

How about this?

open FH, "<datafile";

while (my $line = <FH>) {
    chomp $line;
    my @a = ($line =~ /('{1}.*?'{1}(?=\s+)|\S+)/g);

    print join('|', @a) . "\n";
}

close FH;
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Re^2: can't use unpack or split?? by seaver (Pilgrim) on Jun 07, 2004 at 20:12 UTC
Thanks for your reply, it totally makes sense, however I wasn't explicit enough in my question. You've coded the search pattern specifically for the example I gave above, but truly, the 4 or 5 characters in the second column could be ANY character, and not necessarily be delimited by ' as they are in the example above. After having thought about this, the two things I can guarantee are: The first three characters are FIXED. There is a space between every column The second column is at least 1 character, and at the most 5 characters So my problem is truly that I have columns delimited by spaces, (nothing I can do about that) and the second column may actually have within it, a space...!! Any more ideas? Cheers Sam	[reply]

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Re^2: can't use unpack or split??
by seaver (Pilgrim) on Jun 07, 2004 at 20:12 UTC

You've coded the search pattern specifically for the example I gave above, but truly, the 4 or 5 characters in the second column could be ANY character, and not necessarily be delimited by ' as they are in the example above.

After having thought about this, the two things I can guarantee are:

The first three characters are FIXED.
There is a space between every column
The second column is at least 1 character, and at the most 5 characters

So my problem is truly that I have columns delimited by spaces, (nothing I can do about that) and the second column may actually have within it, a space...!!

Any more ideas?

Cheers
Sam

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