Hi,

read the first file line by line. Split the line at the '='. Take the first part as key of a hash and the second as value of that key. Then do the same for the second file. When you hit in the second file a key which was already read than the value gets substituted. When you have read both files print every tuple (key, value) of your resulting hash to the first file.

When you have problems with some of that subtasks show us your code and we'll help you.

McA

Thanks guys. Especially McA and Corion. I have this figured. This is what I have done so far and it seems to work. Please suggest any improvements or blunders that I am making with the code.

use strict;
use warnings;

use constant {
    FILE_A  => './kma',
    FILE_B  => './kma2',
};

my %a_hash;

my @a_array;
my @b_array;

open my $a_fh, "<", FILE_A;
while (<$a_fh>) {
chomp;
my ($key, $value) = split '=', $_, 2;
$a_hash{$key} = $value;
}

open my $b_fh, "<", FILE_B;
while (<$b_fh>) {
chomp;
my ($key, $value) = split '=', $_, 2;
$a_hash{$key} = $value;
}

open my $c_fh, ">", FILE_A or die $!;
print $c_fh "$_=$a_hash{$_}\n" for (keys %a_hash);
[download]

> Please suggest any improvements

Your example suggested that you want sorted output

print $c_fh "$_=$a_hash{$_}\n" for (sort keys %a_hash);
[download]

Cheers Rolf

( addicted to the Perl Programming Language)

Nicely done.

Funny that it felt like a homework assignemnt, showing that homework sometimes does reflect the real world :-).

That said, I can't see any particular issue with yoru code, other than the use of a variable for the file handle, which I'm seeing more and more of in Perl posts here. Has that become the "new normal"?

What you just did with that code, by the way, is essentially re-invent the sort/merge using Perl hashes to take care of all the dirty work for you. :-)

Looking forward to your next Perl issue.

Just some suggestions

The use constant part is not needed probably, you can add the filename in the open line (saving some typing).

You have two pairs of variables with the same name for file A and File B ($key, $key, $value, $value). This is probably a source of future troubles.

You don't need to repeat the word array as variable name, if something begins with @ you know yet that is an array, something like "@first" is probable a better choice, (easier to write and read) than "@a_array". Don't use @a either.

You need to add possible spaces to the split regex, and you could probably fill the %hash directly with maybe something like: (untested)

my ($key, $a_hash{$key}) = split /\s*=\s*/, $_, 2;

Sure! :)

Firstly start with an example that makes sense (why is "world" excluded, it's different!?!) and then show us what you tried so far!

Hi! I cam across this example which is supposed to put the difference of the two files in b_array. Then i was thinking of merging it. But it still doesn't solve my problem of updating the file with latest values.

use strict;
use warnings;

use constant {
    FILE_A  => './kma',
    FILE_B  => './kma2',
};

my %a_hash;

my @a_array;
my @b_array;

open my $a_fh, "<", FILE_A;


while ( my $line ~= <$a_fh> ) {
    chomp $line;
    $line = /^(.+?);/;     # This strips the first field from the line
    $a_hash{$1} = 1;       # Now, I'll use the first field as my index
+ to my hash
    push @a_array, $line;  # This adds the line to the end of the arra
+y
}
close $a_fh;

open my $b_fh, "<", FILE_B;

while ( my $line = <$b_fh> ) {
    $line ~= /^(.+?);/;
    if ( not exists $a_hash{$1} ) {
        push @b_array, $line;
    }
}
close $b_fh;

my @combined_array = sort (@a_array, @b_array);
print "content of my combined array = @combined_array";
[download]

"world" is excluded because it has been updated by the second file.

There are many ways to do this, but for such a small amount of data (homework exercise unlikely to exceed your system's memory LOL), I'd agree McA on this one -- a hash is definitely the way to go. That does most of the work for you.

Actually it is an interesting exercise. What I need this is for remotely configuring my WiFi access points that runs with hostapd. So hostapd has a configuration file called hostapd.conf.

what I want is to send only the modifications in the conf file over a perl socket. I am able to do that already. But now I need to process the downloaded file and merge into the existing conf file and then reboot the AP.

I am new to perl so i am stuck for the time being :)

%hash = map {$_ => 1} <>;
open OUT, '> file3' or die $!;
print OUT for (sort keys %hash);
[download]

This is wrong. For example for the two given input files, your code gives the following output:

%hash = map {$_ => 1} <DATA>;
print for (sort keys %hash);
__DATA__
A=hello
B=world
B=planet
C=universe
[download]

Output:

A=hello
B=planet
B=world
C=universe
[download]

... but the expected output is

A=hello
B=planet
C=universe
[download]

The input data is basically a two-column input and the keys are in the first column. The hash approach in general is correct, but you need to use the stuff left of the equal sign as key and the rest (or the whole line) as value:

use strict;
my %hash = map {/^(.*)=/ or die "Malformed input: $_"; $1 => $_} <DATA
+>;
print for (sort values %hash);
__DATA__
A=hello
B=world
B=planet
C=universe
[download]

when I wrote that, the author didnt clarify
the tasks clearly yet
if he needs select the name before "="
i would go with code:

%hash = map {/=(\w+)/; $` => $1} <DATA>;

foreach (sort keys %hash){
        print "$_ $hash{$_}\n";
}


__DATA__
A=hello
B=world
B=planet
C=universe
[download]

As a one-liner: (make sure you keep a copy of file1 around...)

perl -ne "/^([^=]+)/ and $_{$1}=$_; END {print sort values %_}" file1 
+file2 > file1
[download]

The specifications you gave don't make sense. Please explain.

Sorry about that. What I need is that. I have one text file and then I get a second text file. Then I want the contents in the first text file to be updated by the content of the second text file.