Manipulating a file

Siegfried13 has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hi All, Im currently working on perl script that will covert the content on a given pattern. I want to make my code dynamic so I used the sub routine function so that it can handle the multiple patterns to be converted. Since per data it has an inconsistent Heading 2 content. Ex. <Heading 2>General No. 1289 <Heading 2>SRL Nos. 1312 & 1294 it should have an output of GeneralNo.1289 and SRLNos1312 _1294 Does the use of my subroutines are correct? And Does the flagging of varibles are correct in my codes below? I'm new to perl and I'll really appreciate your help to correct my errors below. Thank You!


#!/usr/bin/perl

use warnings;

$input_data = @ARGV[0];
$output_data = @ARGV[1];

$h2_flag = 0;
$h3_flag = 0;

open(INFILE,"$input_data") || die "cannot open input file : $infile";
open(OUTFILE,">$output_data") || die "cannot open temporary output fil
+e : $output_data";

$/=undef;
# Process error data to rectify the error records in massaged data
while (<INFILE>) {

$data = $1;

if ($data =~ m/(<RD,ID:[A-Z0-9]*:"Heading\s*2">.*)/) {
    
    $h2_flag++;
    
}elsif ($data =~ m/(<RD,ID:[A-Z0-9]*:"Heading\s*3">.*)/) {

    $h3_flag++;
    
}

if ($h2_flag == 1) {
        if ($data =~ m/(<RD,ID:[A-Z0-9]*:"Heading\s*2">.*)/) {
                $head_data = $1;
                $head_data =~ s/<RD,ID:[A-Z0-9]*:/<RD:/gi;
                }
                }

&heading;

sub heading{


if ($h2_flag == 1) {
        if ($data = m/(<RD,ID:[A-Z0-9]*:"Heading\s*2">.*)/) {
                $head_data = $1;
                $Case_No = $head_data = s/(<.*>)(.*)/$2/;
            
                $Case_No = $head_data;
                $date = $head_data;
                
    $h2_flag = 0;
}elsif ($h3_flag == 1) {
print "PRINT";

$h3_flag = 0;
}

}

   print OUTFILE $_;                     # Output the contents of $_ t
+o 
                                         # output file

    }                                   

# Close the INFILE and OUTFILE.
close(INFILE);
close(OUTFILE);
[download]

Hi,

This is the sample of the data:

<DR:"Heading 2">T.G No. L-5786   December 29, 2010
<DR:"Heading 3">ASIAN vs. ET AL.


Sample output on should be all special character will be remove.
and the date will be converted as 12292010.

Output:

<Head>TGNL5786Y12292010


Description:
TGNL5786 - Head
Y - Consistent Indicator of date.
Date - 12292010

December will be 12
Date is 29 and Year is 2010.
the month word will always be converted into its numeric value. Januar
+y - 01
[download]

Comment on Manipulating a file Select or Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Manipulating a file by rnewsham (Curate) on Apr 30, 2014 at 13:18 UTC
There are some problems with the code you pasted. It will not compile as there is a missing } somewhere, as you did not indent the while block it is not clear where it should be but I guess before &heading. Which brings us to problem two you call &heading but there is no sub heading, you probably want to rename heading2 to heading. A couple of other minor points you probably want $ARGV[0] instead of @ARGV[0]. It is also more common to use heading() instead of &heading. As for what your code is doing and whether or not it is the best approach, I agree with GotToBTru. It would help if you provided an example of the input data and an example of the desired output.	[reply]
Re: Manipulating a file by NetWallah (Canon) on Apr 30, 2014 at 15:14 UTC
Your code requires a "}" to be inserted at line 37, to compile, has several warnings, and the line 19: `$data = $1;` [download] makes no sense. Please make an attempt at actually addressing the problem, post code that compiles, and ask specific questions about the parts that do not do what you expect. What is the sound of Perl? Is it not the sound of a wall that people have stopped banging their heads against? -Larry Wall, 1992	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Manipulating a file by GotToBTru (Prior) on Apr 30, 2014 at 12:55 UTC
It would help to see a sample of the data file. 1 Peter 4:10	[reply]