> Perlwannabe wrote:
>>
>> I posted a problem to the mailing list with a similar question I had
>> some time ago regarding replacing data between fields. Unfortunately,
>> I am having a difficult time with the problem. I am including the
>> code and a sample of the data. Could someone please give me a clue as
>> to why this is not working. I have exhausted myself before
>> re-contacting the list. When I run the code, the file remains exactly
>> the same and nothing is changed or
>> replaced.
>>
>> ######################## BEGIN CODE ##########################
>> #!/usr/bin/perl
>> use warnings;
>> use strict;
>> use LWP::Simple;
>>
>> my $file10 = "C:/Test_Folder/test_data/input.txt";
>> #declare the input
>> file as the static file name
>> open(FILE,"<$file10") || die "Could not open file for reading!
>> $!"; #open file for reading
>> open(TEMP,">$file10.tmp") || die "Could not open file for writing!
>> $!"; #open file for writing
>> while(<FILE>){ #begin while
>> s{ (?<=HOW) (.+?) (?=NUMBER:) } { ( $a = $1 ) =~ tr/\t/ /; $a
>> }ex;
>> print TEMP $_; #print result to temp file
>> } #end while
>> #Close the files. This should happen automatically, but the routine
>> is written for safety
>> close FILE || die "Could not close file! $!";
>> close TEMP || die "Could not close file! $!";
>> unlink $file10;
>> #remove the old file
>> rename("$file10.tmp",$file10) || die "The file could not be renamed!
>> $!"; #rename the temp file to the old file's name
>>
>> ##################### END CODE #####################################
>>
>> Here is a sample of the data file:
>>
>> Name:<tab>John Smith<tab>Address: 1234 Sparrow Ave.<tab>HOW MANY
>> CHILDREN: 3<tab>NUMBER OF PETS: 2<tab>TYPE OF PETS: Fish,
>> Dog<tab>FAVORITE NUMBER: 13<tab>City: New York<tab>State: New
>> York<tab>Zip: 11011
>>
>> Obviously, I do not want all of the useless information between
>> Address and City. I want to delete everything between HOW and NUMBER:
>> (including the HOW and NUMBER:<tab>) So my file will look like this:
>>
>> Name:<tab>John Smith<tab>Address: 1234 Sparrow Ave.<tab>City: New
>> York<tab>State: New York<tab>Zip: 11011
>
>
> According to your data, this seems to work:
>
> while ( <FILE> ) {
> print TEMP join '',
> grep /(?:^|\t)(?i:name|address|city|state|zip):/, # fields to
> keep /(?:^|\t)[^:]+?:\s+[^\t]+/g; # split
> the fields
> }
I originally tried to do this, but it won't work. The data doesn't
_always_ have a <tab> before address, sometimes (although seldom) it has a
<space>. With grep I would miss the entire address. However, if I were
to just select everything and replace it with nothing, that would be the
answer. BTW...your solution above is right on the money for about 98% of
the file. However, by simply scanning the line and deleting everything
between between HOW and NUMBER: that would give me 100%. Any ideas?
BTW...can you see why the original code I posted is not working?
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