in reply to Re^9: Easiest way to filter a file based on user input
in thread Easiest way to filter a file based on user input

Oh okay, apologies for the buffoonery on my part.

The script seems to be working fine now, I added another next line: next if /^(\s\s-\d)/ && $1 > $limit;, because without it, it doesn't recognise regular Real numbers like -2, -5 etc.

The script:

#!/usr/bin/perl 
use strict;
use warnings;
use Regexp::Common qw /number/;


print "Enter limit: ";
chomp( my $limit = <STDIN> );
#$limit = abs($limit);

open my $IN, '<', "xt_spacer_results.hairpin" or die $!;
open my $SIFTED, '>', "new_xt_spacer_results.hairpin" or die $!;

while (<$IN>){
    next if /^None/;
    next if /^($RE{num}{real})/ && $1 > $limit;
    next if /^(\s\s-\d)/ && $1 > $limit;
    print $SIFTED $_;
}

close $IN;
close $SIFTED;

[download]

Haukex, you are a legend, thanks.

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Re^11: Easiest way to filter a file based on user input
by haukex (Archbishop) on Jul 16, 2017 at 14:05 UTC
    it doesn't recognise regular Real numbers like -2, -5

    It does, here's a way you can test that (see e.g. How to ask better questions using Test::More and sample data):

    use warnings;
use strict;
use Test::More;
use Regexp::Common qw/number/;

like  "-2", qr/^$RE{num}{real}$/;
like  "-5", qr/^$RE{num}{real}$/;
like " -5", qr/^$RE{num}{real}$/;

done_testing;

__END__

ok 1
ok 2
not ok 3
#   Failed test at ...
1..3
# Looks like you failed 1 test of 3.

    [download]

    As you can see, the problem isn't that it doesn't match integers, it's the whitespace at the beginning of the line. Try changing

        next if /^($RE{num}{real})/ && $1 > $limit;
    next if /^(\s\s-\d)/ && $1 > $limit;

    [download]

    to

        next if /^\s*($RE{num}{real})/ && $1 > $limit;

    [download]

    Where \s* means "zero or more whitespace characters" (perlretut).

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      Oooh thanks!
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