With minimal quoting....
>I have a line that looks like this:
>
> TOXFY-1 LENDER: DISBURSEMENT DATE: RUN DATE:
05/01/2001
>
>I want to pull off the 1st field and the date.
How about
($first, $last) = (split /\s+/, $_)[0,-1];
This will give you the first and last entries of $_ separated by white space
(non \n).
or even
($first, $last) = (split)[0,-1];
Same thing, $_ and \s+ are the defaults for split.
You might need to trim the white space of the front with something like
s/^\s//;
I'm not sure if the leading white space in your example is really there or
not.
Hope this helps,
Peter C.
Gratuitous quote follows...
"God gave us beer so that we will know he loves us and wants us to be
happy."
-Ben Franklin
