package magic_columator;

use strict;
use Carp;

our $TABS_MODE = undef;

1;

sub test_fetchrow {
    my $this = shift;

    my @row = $this->fetchrow;
    print Dumper([$this->{format}, @row]), "\n";
}

sub fetchrow {
    my $this = shift;

    my $fh = $this->{IN};

    if( my $line = <$fh> ) {
        my @a = ();

        if( $TABS_MODE ) {
            @a = split(/$TABS_MODE/, $line);

        } else {
            @a = unpack($this->{format}, $line);
        }

        s/^\s+// for @a;
        s/\s+$// for @a;

        return @a;
    }

    return ();
}

sub new {
    my $class = shift;
    my $this  = bless {}, $class;
    my $file  = shift;

    croak "couldn't find file \"$file\"" unless -f $file;
    
    $this->{file} = $file;
    $this->find_seps;
    
    open $this->{IN}, $this->{file};
    
    return $this;
}

sub find_seps {
    my $this = shift;
    
    open IN, $this->{file} or die "couldn't open $this->{file} for read: $!";
    my @spaces = ();
    while(<IN>) {
        my $x = 0;
        while( m/(.)/g ) {
            my $c = $1;
            
            $x ++;
            
            push @spaces, 1 while @spaces < $x;
            
            $spaces[$x-1] = 0 unless $c eq ' ';
        }
    }
    close IN;
    
    $this->{format} = "";
    my $x = 0;
    for my $c (@spaces) {
        $x ++;
        
        if( $c ) {
            if( $x>1 ) {
                $this->{format} .= "A$x";
                $x = 0;
            }
            
            $this->{format} .= " ";
        }
    }

    if( $x ) {
        $this->{format} .= "A$x";
    }
}


##</code><code>##

use magic_columator;

while(my @row = $col->fetchrow) {
   # do stuff
}