Based on your input file format
a|b|c|d|f|#|#|#...
where letters are date, address etc, #'s are number and ... indicates
lots more :-).
# open file and complain if it failes
open(F, "DAT") || die "failed to open DAT\n";
while (<F>) # read's into $_ by magic
{
@f = split(/\|/); # \| because | is a regexp char, splits $_
# grab the bits we want to duplicate for each record. you will have
# to tweak for the actual number of fields. @rest should just contain
# the numbers
($date, $time, $add1, $add2, $add3, @rest) = @f;
foreach $n (@rest)
{
$n =~ /^\s*$/ && next; # If the field is blank or space only
# ignore. =~ binds the pattern match
print "$date|$time|$add1|$add2|$add3|$n\n";
}
}
You can make this a bit more efficient but it would have been harder
to explain and wouldn't include some handy perlisms
Enjoy, Steve
Crystal Wrote...
Hi all,
I have a problem and I need to know where to begin. At the magazine I
work
for we have what are called "bingo cards" in the magazine that people
can
fill out and send back to us to get information on whatever of 271
topics,
stores, resorts, etc. of their choice. They can also fill this out
online.
What we end up with is a DAT file with each users stuff as one entry in
a
pipe-delimited file with hard returns at the end of each entry. Of
course we
could bring this into Excel or Access or some other DB, but the problem
then
becomes that there are 283 fields. Not many DB's support that many.
The point:
I need to take this text file and format each entry (separated by hard
returns) so that the user info (name address, etc) are all in their own
columns still and then for each number they chose (up to 271 out of 271)
it
creates a new entry with their contact info and one number in the last
column.
For example: Joe Smith|123 Main
St.|Yourtown|US|83124|888-555-1212|[EMAIL PROTECTED]|1|2||||||8||10|11|
would
then become:
Joe Smith|123 Main St.|Yourtown|US|83124|888-555-1212|[EMAIL PROTECTED]|1|
Joe Smith|123 Main St.|Yourtown|US|83124|888-555-1212|[EMAIL PROTECTED]|2|
Joe Smith|123 Main St.|Yourtown|US|83124|888-555-1212|[EMAIL PROTECTED]|8|
Joe Smith|123 Main St.|Yourtown|US|83124|888-555-1212|[EMAIL PROTECTED]|10|
Joe Smith|123 Main St.|Yourtown|US|83124|888-555-1212|[EMAIL PROTECTED]|11|
Here is a sample entry from the DAT file.
|6/12/2001|13:05:34|Closet Geek|456 Flibity Jibet Way|My
Town|CA|90450|US|[EMAIL PROTECTED]|760-555-1212||1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9|10
|11|12|13|14|15|16|17|18|19|20|21|22|23|24|25|26|27|28|29|30|31|32|33|34|35|
36|37|38|39|40|41|42|43|44|45|46|47|48|49|50|51|52|53|54|55|56|57|58|59|60|6
1|62|63|64|65|66|67|68|69|70|71|72|73|74|75|76|77|78|79|80|81|82|83|84|85|86
|87|88|89|90|91|92|93|94|95|96|97|98|99|100|101|102|103|104|105|106|107|108|
109|110|111|112|113|114|115|116|117|118|119|120|121|122|123|124|125|126|127|
128|129|130|131|132|133|134|135|136|137|138|139|140|141|142|143|144|145|146|
147|148|149|150|151|152|153|154|155|156|157|158|159|160|161|162|163|164|165|
166|167|168|169|170|171|172|173|174|175|176|177|178|179|180|181|182|183|184|
185|186|187|188|189|190|191|192|193|194|195|196|197|198|199|200|201|202|203|
204|205|206|207|208|209|210|211|212|213|214|215|216|217|218|219|220|221|222|
223|224|225|226|227|228|229|230|231|232||234|235|236|237|238|239|240|241|242
|243|244|245|246|247|248|249|250|251|252|253|254|255|256|257|258|259|260|261
|262|263|264|265|266|267|268|269|270|271|
|6/12/2001|13:14:42|closetgeek|456 Flibity Jibet Way|Yucca
Valley|California|54444|yugoslavia|[EMAIL PROTECTED]|760-555-1212|Submit||
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||53|||||58||||||||||||||||
||||78|||||||||||89||||||95||97|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
||||||||||||||||||||||||||168||||||||||178||||||||186|||||||||||197|||||||||
|207|||||||||||||||||||||||230||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
I really need to know where to begin. Should I put everything between
the
first 12 pipes (including the pipes) into a variable and then run a loop
on
the remainder?
Closet Geek >^..^<
