Because I'm sick of trying to solve my own problems. :P

#!/usr/bin/env perl
use strictures;
use JSON;
use Data::Dump "dump";
use Test::More;

my $in = decode_json '{"OWNER":"KeyProjects","Region":"Southern","Dist
+rict":"Arid","PLANTNO":"Sunset View","COMPT":"A08","age1":null,"ht1":
+null,"age2":null,"ht2":null,"age3":null,"ht3":null,"age4":null,"ht4":
+null,"age5":null,"ht5":null,"age6":null,"ht6":null,"age1":null,"ht1":
+null,"age2":null,"ht2":null,"age3":null,"ht3":null,"age4":null,"ht4":
+null,"age5":null,"ht5":null,"age6":null,"ht6":null,"wc":"EF1"}';

my $out = decode_json '{"OWNER":"KeyProjects","Region":"Southern","Dis
+trict":"Arid","PLANTNO":"Sunset View","COMPT":"A08","scheduled":{"age
+1":null,"ht1":null,"age2":null,"ht2":null,"age3":null,"ht3":null,"age
+4":null,"ht4":null,"age5":null,"ht5":null,"age6":null,"ht6":null},"co
+mpleted":{"age1":null,"ht1":null,"age2":null,"ht2":null,"age3":null,"
+ht3":null,"age4":null,"ht4":null,"age5":null,"ht5":null,"age6":null,"
+ht6":null},"wc":"EF1"}';

my $planned = qr/\A (?: age\d+ | ht\d+ ) \z/x;

my $corrected = $in;
for my $key ( keys %{$corrected} )
{
    if ( $key =~ $planned )
    {
        $corrected->{completed}{$key} = $corrected->{scheduled}{$key} 
+= delete $corrected->{$key};
    }
}

# print dump $in;
is_deeply $out, $corrected, "Corrected data matches expectations";
diag encode_json $corrected;
done_testing();
[download]

Thank you for your reply and code.

This is just way too advanced for me at present.

I am still learning Perl etc.

John

I totally understand. I remember the same boat quite well. That said, the solution, or at least its style, I gave is the only sane way to approach your problem and by far the easiest. Regular expressions can indeed move mountains but it's much harder than you're thinking and for your problem I doubt you (or anyone for that matter) would ever arrive at anything that worked except in the most trivial and inflexible case.

My code was idiomatic but it is easy and straightforward once you can follow it. It's also robust whereas a regex solution will never be. I'll adapt the code a bit to make it more clear and walk you through it. <readmore/> away…

Read more... (8 kB)

Have fun, HTH, TTFN, etc. :P

Further Reading

• perlref
• perlreftut
• perlre
• Perl Books Online
• Modern Perl

Update: </c></c> fixed.

So, what code have you already written and how did it fail?

The easiest way in my opinion would be to find the keys where you need to insert the two new structures, and replace them:

use strict;

my $str = '{"OWNER":...}';
$str =~ s!"age1"!"scheduled":{"xage1"!;
$str =~ s!"age1"!}, "completed":{"xage1"!;
$str =~ s!"wc"!}, "wc"!;
$str =~ s!"xage1"!"age1"!g;
[download]

I've first replaced age1 by xage1 so that on the second replacement, I can use "completed" without undoing my first replacement.

Thank you for your reply and code.

I was able to use your code to solve the problem.

Sometimes one just needs a nudge in the right direction