Hi moddingforfun,

PerlMonks is mostly a place to learn, and usually* not a code writing service (there are other websites where you can get Perl coders to write things for you for not too much money if you are so inclined).

* Sometimes, if you're lucky, some monks will help with working code. But you'll get much more help if you show your own efforts - of course we'd be happy to welcome another Perl coder here, so perhaps you should give perlintro another go :-) If you can write BASIC, that's a start - that's what I first started with many years ago, and if you know Bash, there are some similarities to Perl there. Try writing a few lines of code, we'll be happy to help.

Also, we can point you in the right direction. For example, in your question, you don't specify how this reordering is supposed to happen. Have a look at How do I post a question effectively?, at the very least you'd have to give some short sample input, describe how the reordering is supposed to happen, and show the corresponding expected output.

For listing the files in a directory, there's e.g. the glob function. For accessing and reordering the lines in each file, perhaps the module Tie::File can help - it provides mostly transparent access to the lines of a file via a Perl array.

Update 2016-11-30: I think I may have made it sound too much like you won't get any code here. Of course that's not the case, but as I said it's best if you first show your efforts (= good questions + your code) - at least those are my favorite questions and that's what often motivates me to want to help.

Hope this helps,
-- Hauke D

One way to do it would be first to read the template file and store its contents in memory (probably as an array), so that you can then read it in order for each of your data files.

Then read your file list line by line, and, for each line, read the corresponding file content into a hash. Then scan the array, lookup the corresponding file content, put the file content into the right order, and dump it to a file.

One thing to take into account is that you normally can't edit a file in place (well, you can with a work around, but it's better and safer not to do it). So it is probably easier to output your result into files having the same names as the input files, but in another directory. Then you remove the old files only when you're confident that they have been successfully converted. This is much safer.

We would really need a sample of the input file to help further.

In response to your request for better samples and further info...

Game Website http://www.fleetops.net

Further explanation of the goal .... When you open a book to read, you expect to find certain things in a certain order. Preface / Forward first. Table of Contents next. After that, the chapters of the book, starting with Chapter 1. etc. That in essence is what I am trying to achieve with these files.

The template is the ?skeleton?framework?blueprint?form? for the desired end result.

Un-formated/non-reordered files :

Read more... (50 kB)

The full template file :

Read more... (3 kB)
Hand Edited File : rom_generix_beamr6.odf
Read more... (18 kB)

Look at the "value" of the following variable's in the samples.

possiblecraftnames =
hulltargethardpoints =
weaponhardpoints1 =
weaponhardpoints2 =
etc.
[download]

In attempts to use a bash shell script ( while read / grep AND/OR sed / >> to different directories ) the "value" part of the key pair turned out to be the downfall.

I took your Template as the "sorting rules". Shuffled that array, then applied the sorting rules to arrive back at the input array. I have no idea of what you are trying to do. Your description was not understandable to me. But Perl can re-order (order) anything as long as you can describe what the ordering rules are.

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use Data::Dumper;
use List::Util qw(shuffle);

my $sort_order=<<END;
unitname
tooltip
verbosetooltip
race
buildtime
officercost
crewcost
dilithiumcost
latinumcost
metalcost
biomattercost
maxHealth
curHealth
healthrate
maxshield
curShield
shieldrate
maxSpecialEnergy
specialEnergyRate
specialenergydisplaymode
END

#generate sorting rules...

my $i=0;
my %sort_order = map{$_ => $i++}split ' ',$sort_order;

my @keys = shuffle keys %sort_order; # shuffle not really needed,
                                     # but adds some credibility as to
                                     # the random nature of output

print "SHUFFLED ARRAY...\n";  # randomized array
print join("\n",@keys),"\n";

print "\n","RE-ORDERED ARRAY BY SORTING RULES\n";
print "THIS IS NOT A COPY OF THE INPUT ARRAY\n";
@keys = sort{$sort_order{$a} <=> $sort_order{$b}}@keys;
print join("\n",@keys),"\n";

__END__
SHUFFLED ARRAY...
shieldrate
officercost
maxHealth
race
curHealth
metalcost
curShield
verbosetooltip
latinumcost
healthrate
biomattercost
unitname
dilithiumcost
maxSpecialEnergy
specialenergydisplaymode
tooltip
specialEnergyRate
buildtime
crewcost
maxshield

RE-ORDERED ARRAY BY SORTING RULES
THIS IS NOT A COPY OF THE INPUT ARRAY
unitname
tooltip
verbosetooltip
race
buildtime
officercost
crewcost
dilithiumcost
latinumcost
metalcost
biomattercost
maxHealth
curHealth
healthrate
maxshield
curShield
shieldrate
maxSpecialEnergy
specialEnergyRate
specialenergydisplaymode

Process completed successfully
[download]

I think we need a sample of what one of the .odf files contains, in order to help...

Hmm... looking at some of the lines of 'template.txt'. You are attempting to mod some sort of Star Trek video game I presume? If so you may just want to tell us which game and what you are trying to do exactly. If any Monk here happens to be familiar with or even have the game they can probably go look at the files themselves and see exactly what you are talking about.

Beyond that, I know you probably hate the idea of putting in the time to learn the rudiments of a computer language, but Perl isn't so difficult to pick up, and even something like this very short tutorial can teach you everything you need and more to do what you are asking. The far greater upside of sticking it out and learning Perl yourself would be that if you are doing this sort of thing a lot, you will be amazed at how much more adept and proficient you can be at it with the Swiss Army Chainsaw that is Perl in your toolbox. :-)

In response to your request ...

The website is http://www.fleetops.net

The tutorial ... a question ... The "arrays" ... input is a fixed expression? By that I mean 'pattern match'. grep for '^green' in a file, that is exactly what you get. The result is the first 'green' starting a line in that file. The problem I face, is the rest of the line. The rest of the line has the "value" of the key-pair.

Read more... (1333 Bytes)
I posted more info/lengthy examples in another response on this same ?node?thread?

I am puzzled how this could ... be input without major problems

If you need to create a separate record for each value then try

#!perl
use strict;
use DBI;
use Text::ParseWords 'quotewords';

open OUT,'>','output.txt' or die "$!";

my @infiles = glob("*.odf");
for my $infile (@infiles){
  open IN,'<',$infile or die "Could not open $infile : $!";
  print "Reading $infile..";
  my $count=0;
  while (<IN>){
    chomp;
    ++$count;
    my ($key,$string) = split /\s*=\s*/,$_;
    my @values = quotewords('\s+',0,$string);
    for my $i (1..@values){
      printf OUT "%-30s %-35s %-35s %5d\n",
                 $infile,$key,$values[$i-1],$i;
    }
  }
  print "$count lines read\n";
}
[download]

poj

Thanks to all Posters.

Your comments got the old mental gears turning. I figured out *why* the shell script wasn't working, due to comments made here.

Hint : replaced grep 'term-goes-here' with grep 'term-goes-here.*' .... that gets the entire line of text.

Learned something anyways ... Thanks to All.