Re: problem with splitting file on whitespace: how to circumvent inconsistent formatting through file

Just a guess, are the columns fixed width? If so, unpack can help.

while (<DATA>) {
    chomp;
    my @fields = unpack('a7 a7 a7');
    print join(" ", map {"\"$_\""} @fields), "\n";
}
__DATA__
 15,567-25,324-45,234 
-13,345 53,562 13,452 
 -7,521-22,454-54,671
[download]

Outputs:

" 15,567" "-25,324" "-45,234"
"-13,345" " 53,562" " 13,452"
" -7,521" "-22,454" "-54,671"
[download]

Comment on Re: problem with splitting file on whitespace: how to circumvent inconsistent formatting through file Select or Download Code

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Re^2: problem with splitting file on whitespace: how to circumvent inconsistent formatting through file by angela2 (Sexton) on Jul 04, 2016 at 12:41 UTC
Hi and thanks for your answer, it's the one I think I understand the most, but it's very kind that you all took the time and tried to help. I'll also try to understand the other two answers hopefully. I wasn't successful implementing this but I'm wondering if it has to do with the fact that I haven't really given you a clear picture of what my data looks like, so this file looks like this - this is probably a pretty silly way to show you but here's a link to a screenshot of my data https://www.dropbox.com/s/68xjbspn47jzmx9/Untitled.png?dl=0 , sorry I know this is really random but I have no clue how to properly format the numbers so that you can see. As you can see I have 4 columns, the last one is always 1 digit and the rest always have 3 decimal digits. Can your solution (with some editing) still be implemented on my data?	[reply]
Re^3: problem with splitting file on whitespace: how to circumvent inconsistent formatting through file by Anonymous Monk on Jul 04, 2016 at 12:54 UTC
Can't you just copy and paste some of your data here inside `<code>` tags? Those will preserve formatting. Anyway, from this small sample it does look like your columns are fixed width. The first one looks to have either 7 or 8 characters, the second and third 8 characters - try an unpack pattern of `"a8 a8 a8"` and see what you get. Adjust and extend this pattern as is appropriate for your input data, for example to add another column `"a8 a8 a8 a6"` and so on. For a tutorial see "Packing Text" in perlpacktut.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^4: problem with splitting file on whitespace: how to circumvent inconsistent formatting through file by angela2 (Sexton) on Jul 04, 2016 at 14:01 UTC
Ah yes, ok I get it now! Thank you so much! I did try various "a" values (a1, a7, a6 etc) but couldn't figure it out. Thanks, I'm checking out the link :)	[reply]