Traversing through files to read a variable

anirudh.agarwal has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hi Monks, I am stuck up with an issue. I have a variable $path which has the path to a file, say /usr/hello.txt Now /usr/hello.txt file has path to other files. Example: The contents of /usr/hello.txt is as follows

view_cfg_dir = /usr/TextPass/cfg/
url = http://localhost/tpx
user = statview
pwd_md5 = 93211cdee930eb4e1f7d36558a361145
[download]

Now there is another file in

/usr/TextPass/cfg/

namely export.cfg whose contents are as below

pid = /var/hello/pid

report_cfg    = /var/_export/config
report_tmp    = /var/_export/tmp
[download]

I want the value of report_cfg to be stored in a variable. How do I implement this functionality. Your help is highly appreciated.

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Re: Traversing through files to read a variable by NetWallah (Canon) on Dec 18, 2013 at 06:12 UTC
How do I implement this functionality. Smells like homework. You can implement this by writing a program, preferably in perl, to OPEN a file, READ the contents, and PARSE it (the split function is useful here). Once parsed, you can assign the components to variables as necessary. Open additional files based on the information in the variables. If, after you have read the documentation, and tried to implement this, you have difficulty with some portion of it, please return here , and explain what you have tried, post the code, even if it does not work, explain what you expect it do do, and we will be glad to assist you with it. When in doubt, mumble; when in trouble, delegate; when in charge, ponder. -- James H. Boren	[reply]
Re: Traversing through files to read a variable by marinersk (Priest) on Dec 19, 2013 at 00:42 UTC
Step 1: Write a script to read all the lines from `/usr/hello.txt`. Keywords to research: `open`, `close`, `while`, `chomp`. Recommend using syntax like `while (my $inputLine = <INPUT_FILE>)` and `chomp $inputLine;` Step 1.9: Decide if you want to act on each line as you read it, or if you want to slurp them all into memory and then loop through those. Note: Slurp technique will require familiarity with arrays and `foreach`. Step 2: Write the code to read all the lines from the secondary (apparently `export.cfg`) files. Step 2.9: Decide if you want to act on each line of these secondary files as you read them, or if you want to slurp them all into memory and then loop through those. Note: Slurp technique will require familiarity with arrays and `foreach`. Step 3: As you go through the lines of those secondary files, extracting the `report_cfg` information is a Perl speciality (it's more or less what the 'E' stands for in the name "Perl", incidentally). As noted by others, use of the `split` statement is likely to be helpful here. Is that enough to get you going?	[reply] [d/l] [select]