Looking through a file...

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

I've been racking my brain about this code for days. It takes the user's input (a name or part of a name), checks to see if it has only one word, then it should use a grep function to find the person's answer in the array that contains the file. But it doesn't even print out anything. When I stopped using grep and used a "foreach" loop to put it inot a variable, then using an "if" loop to first check the line for the word, and pushing it into array, it just displays the whole file.

#!/usr/bin/perl

#Start the modules
use strict;
use CGI;

#Create a new CGI object
my $Page = new CGI;


#Take the inoformation from the CGI module
my $Info = $Page->param("words");


#Print out an HTML MIME Header
print $Page->header;

#Print out the proper HTML
print <<HTMLSTUFF;
<html>
<head>
<title>
Your results
</title>
<style language="text/css">
<!--
p { font-family: Arial, Times New Roman, Garamond; }
//-->
</style>
</head>

<body bgcolor="lightGreen">
HTMLSTUFF

#Check to see if the information has only one word
if ($Info =~ m/ /) {
print "<p>Please use only one word.</p>\n";

print <<MOREHTML;
</body>
</html>
MOREHTML
exit;
         }

#Make sure the file can be opened
unless (open (FILE, "<../Names.html")) {
print "<p>Make sure the file is there</p>\n";

print <<MOREHTML;
</body>
</html>
MOREHTML
exit;
           }


#Read the whole thing into an array
my @Lines = <FILE>;

#Close the file
close (FILE);

#Use "grep" to find the goods
my @Names =~ grep("$Info", @Lines);
my $i;
############The whole thing
#Print out the word "Results
  print "<p>Here's the results</p>\n";

#Print out all of that shit

#Do a "for" loop to print each of the names
for ($i=0; $i<=@Names; $i++) {
     print "<p>$Names[$i]</p>\n";
              }

##########End it all

print "</body>\n";
print "</html>\n";
[download]

Please Perl Monks, you are my only hope...

Comment on Looking through a file... Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Looking through a file... by BeernuT (Pilgrim) on Mar 31, 2002 at 06:03 UTC
instead of `my @Names =~ grep("$Info", @Lines);` [download] try `my @Names = grep(/$Info/, @Lines);` [download] or even better `my @Names = grep(/^$Info$/, @Lines);` [download] also adding `use warnings; or #!/usr/bin/perl -w (pre 5.6)` [download] should have let you known that something was wrong. let me know if this helps -bn	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Looking through a file... by zengargoyle (Deacon) on Mar 31, 2002 at 06:33 UTC
Try something like this: `# blah blah blah ... print $Page->header; print <<HTMLSTUFF; <body> HTMLSTUFF do_work($Info); print <<HTMLSTUFF; </body> HTMLSTUFF exit; sub do_work { my $Info = shift; print "<p>matching: $Info</p>$/"; if ( $Info =~ / / ) { print "<p>one word only please</p>\n"; return; } unless (open (FILE, "<names.html")) { print "<p>open: $!</p>\n"; return; } my @Names = grep(/$Info/,<FILE>); foreach my $Name (@Names) { print "<p>$Name</p>\n"; } close(FILE); }` [download] Can 'ya tell I don't do much CGI.. :(	[reply] [d/l]