Searching for paragraphs but tricky

rubydba has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I have the DDL output and there are beginning paragraphs such as

CREATE TABLE WCC.CONTACT ,,,, ;
CREATE TABLE WCC.CONTACTMETHOD ....
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and when I vi the input file the cursor ends and either the T of WCC.CONTACT or the D for WCC>CONTACTMETHOD The issue is that when I code

perl -ne 'print if /CREATE TABLE WCC.CONTACT/ .. /;/' inputfile > outf
+ile
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I will get both paragraphs. I tried

perl -ne 'print if /CREATE TABLE WCC.CONTACT$/ .. /;/' inputfile > out
+file
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or other choices and I have yet to be able to show the end of line. grep -p is unavailable in the Linux arena (and it will be Linux at the landing zone) so I could use any/all suggestions

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Re: Searching for paragraphs but tricky by hippo (Archbishop) on Jul 17, 2013 at 20:45 UTC
Are you sure your file isn't in DOS format (ie. CRLF terminators)?	[reply]
Re^2: Searching for paragraphs but tricky by rubydba (Initiate) on Jul 19, 2013 at 21:42 UTC
I did state that it's Linux and it's not a DOS file.	[reply]
Re^3: Searching for paragraphs but tricky by hippo (Archbishop) on Jul 20, 2013 at 10:21 UTC
Hence the question. :) Anyway, there's nothing wrong with your syntax as this trivial example demonstrates: `$ echo -e "CREATE TABLE WCC.CONTACT\nfoo\n;\nCREATE TABLE WCC.CONTACTM +ETHOD\nbar\n;\n" \| perl -ne 'print if /CONTACT$/ .. /;/;' CREATE TABLE WCC.CONTACT foo ;` [download] Therefore the obvious conclusion is that your input file does not contain what you think it contains. Use a hexdump to see what's actually in there.	[reply] [d/l]