Here's what I understand:
-You have a line that has a number at the end of it that signifies something.
-You want to print something depending on the number.
-I'm assuming that what you want to print is the name of the cell site.

Soooo.. What I would do is the following..

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;
#putting the line in question into $_ for this example.
$_ = "Cell ID for Last Cell: MCC: 310  MNC: 64  LAC: x'44D  CI: x'503E
+";

#create our hash of 'site codes' => 'text to print'
my %cells = ('207B' => 'Miami',
             '432F' => 'Buffalo',
             '443R' => 'Whatever you want for cell site 443R',
             '503E' => 'Portland, OR'
            );

if (/CI: x'(\w+)$/) {
    print "Cell site is $cells{$1}.\n";
}
[download]

Hope this helps..
Rich

(If you want to know more about a function mentioned here, click on it and you'll get the documentation on that specific function, including syntax and suggested uses.)

Another idea here is to do something along the lines of the following:

foreach my $line (@the_cell_site_lines) {
    my @data = split /\s+/, $line;

    # If you want the cellnumber, do the following...
    my $cell_number = $data[12];
    $cell_number = substr($cell_number, 2);

    # Do something here with the cellnumber you now have.
}
[download]

The first thing I noticed is that the lines are regular and stuff is separated by spaces. This immediately made me think of split and using an array of values to figure out what was going on.

Once that happens, I can grab the 13th item (remember that Perl array indices start at 0, so it's the 12th index). That item is "x'503E". I have to get rid of the first 2 characters, so I use substr. I could've used a regex (something like $cell_number =~ s/^x'//;), but why use a cannon when all you need is a pistol? substr is faster and clearer.

Creating a hash of cellnumber => cellname is an extremely good idea, and I suggest you do that. There are ways of putting that into a separate file and bringing it in either using do or require. If you want help with those, ask. (Oh - when you first do your testing, don't type the entire hash in - just use maybe 5-10 entries, to make sure your code works. Then, add the rest.)

------
/me wants to be the brightest bulb in the chandelier!

OK That's really neat, I wasn't thinking at it like that. I kind of thought that's what you wanted me to do but wasn't sure, I see now though. However, one final problem, OK, I don't know what any of the lines will be so how do I tell the script that if it matches one of the numbers to print out the correct value from the hash.

You're telling it to print out Miami for $cells{1} but I don't know what the cell site line is going to be it might be 503E so I'd have to tell it somehow to print out the name when you find the number in the record block and in the hash so it knows what key/value to print. So my dilemma is really the printing and matching.

I can do both for a single match no problem. However I have to do 387 of them because there are 387 different Cell site names. So how can I tell the if statement this.

Well your regex will match any cell site line I know that, and if it's under the "if (lastHeading = "MSTerminating)" then it will only evaluate in an "MSTerminating" record block so that one is good and now the final problem which I haven't been able to solve. How do I tell the script to print out the line without knowing what number will be matched. In my current script I don't know why "$_" won't print, but that's the only way I can guess to print out something when you don't know what the answer will be but you know what you want to do with the answer.

The Brassmon_k

OK.. you really should look at perlre. The regex /CI: x'(\w+)$/ looks for "CI: x'<one or more word characters><end of line>". The parens around the \w+ capture that to the variable "$1". And that is going to be the code you're looking for. So in my example.. $1 == "503E". And for any line, it's going to equal whatever is between "x'" and the end of the line.

Hope that clairifies things. And also.. read all of perlre. All of this will be much clearer, and you're probably completely rewrite your script as a result of learning what you can do with regular expressions.

Rich

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

my $msisdn;
my $cell;
my %cellsite;
my $lastHeading;
my $para;
my @lines;
my $cell1;

chomp($msisdn = <STDIN>);
$cell = "Cell ID for First Cell: MCC: 310  MNC: 64  LAC: x'44D  CI: x'
+4F07";
$cell1 = "Cell ID for First Cell: MCC: 310  MNC: 64  LAC: x'44D  CI: x
+'APP03";
%cellsite = ("$cell", "Cell ID for First Cell: MCC: 310  MNC: 64  LAC:
+ x'44D  CI: x'MAD023", "$cell1", "Cell ID for First Cell: MCC: 310  M
+NC: 64  LAC: x'44D  CI: x'APP03");

$/ = ""; # read paragraphs
while ($para = <>) {

@lines = split(/\n/, $para);
if (@lines == 1) # A Heading
{
$lastHeading = $lines[0];
next;
}

if ($lastHeading eq "MSTerminating") {
if ($lines[8] =~ m/$msisdn/) {
if ( $cellsite{$cell} ) {
print "$cellsite{$cell}\n";
}
if ( $cellsite{$cell1} ) {
print "$cellsite{$cell1}\n";
}
print "MSTerminating\n";
print "\n";
print "$lines[8]\n";
print "$lines[4]\n";
}
}
elsif ($lastHeading eq "MSORIGINATING") {
if ($lines[7] =~ m/$msisdn/) {
print "MSORIGINATING\n";
print "\n";
print "$lines[7]\n"; # sixth line
}
}
elsif ($lastHeading eq "TRANSIT") {
if ($lines[7] =~ m/$msisdn/) {
print "$lines[7]\n";
}
}
elsif ($lastHeading eq "mSOriginatingSMSinSMSIWMSC") {
if ($lines[4] =~ m/$msisdn/) {
print "$lines[4]\n";
}
}
}
[download]

$ exp4.53 output #Command line
6082572086       #Command line

OUTPUT
Cell ID for First Cell: MCC: 310  MNC: 64  LAC: x'44D  CI: x'MAD023
Cell ID for First Cell: MCC: 310  MNC: 64  LAC: x'44D  CI: x'APP03
MSTerminating

Calling Party Number: TON: NPI: 1 MSISDN: "phone number"
MSC Identification: TON: 1 NPI: 1 MSISDN: "phone number"
[download]

Would it be possible for you to give mock lists with saaaay, three records, the tranlation list your boss gave you (that have corresponding data in it that match up to the cdr's) and anything else that would make testing in a duplicate environment easier?

----------
- Jim

Well I won't have to do that now. The only problem I had left was an incorrectly formed regex. I knew a regex was my answer but I wasn't putting in the right one. I also knew I had to use a hash. I never really had to use them before because I never had to get a 387 different line match to work before with a hash. Hashes are beautiful, it knew what to print out. Well it's been fixed now so it's cool.

Well if you still want to take a look let me know.

The Brassmon_k