_____________________________________________________
Jeff[japhy]Pinyan: Perl, regex, and perl hacker, who'd like a (from-home) job
s++=END;++y(;-P)}y js++=;shajsj<++y(p-q)}?print:??;

e.g.

sub ReadFile {
  my ($filename) = @_;
  local $/; # undef $/ for slurping in whole file

  open (FILE, $filename) or 
    die "Error in reading from $filename: $!\n";
  
  my $content = <FILE>;
  close (FILE);

  $content =~ s/^(?!--|\n).*\n//mg; # => see japhy's answer
  return ($content);
} # ReadFile
[download]

sub ReadFile {
  my ($filename) = @_;

  open (FILE, $filename) or 
    die "Error in reading from $filename: $!\n";
  
  my $content = "";
  while (<FILE>){

    if ($_ eq "\n"    # if empty line
      or /^\-\-/){    # or -- at the beginning
      $content .= $_; # then append
    } # if

  } # while
  close (FILE);
  return ($content);
} # ReadFile
[download]

Best regards,
perl -le "s==*F=e=>y~\*martinF~stronat~=>s~[^\w]~~g=>chop,print"

    % perl -i -pe 's/^--(.*)\n//g' your_file
[download]

hm. that would delete every line that starts with two dashes (the original poster wanted to keep those lines).

Update: removed the 'm' modifier bit, since the code was acting on the file, instead of acting on the 'slurped' file.

hope this helps,

. also, you want the 'm' modifier for the s/// operator, since the whole file is read into a scalar

Which is not true with -pe without an alternative line ending. The file is read line-by-line.

the original poster wanted to keep those lines

So you're doing the exact opposite. I'm sure that'll help. Sigh. How about:

perl -i -pe'$_ = "" unless /^--/ or !/\S/'
[download]

which does what the original poster wants (If I understood correctly).

Update - This was meant to be a reply to the parent of the node I replied to. This node's parent didn't have the code indented in a way I recognised as being a quote, and I didn't view the message in its context when I replied. To everyone who cites: please use <blockquote>. I use <p><blockquote><em> quote </em></blockquote></p><p> answer </p>, and even have that in my signature for ease of use.

- Yes, I reinvent wheels.
- Spam: Visit eurotraQ.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

my $file_contents;
while( <DATA> ){
  next unless ( /^--/ || /^$/ );
  $file_contents .= $_;
}
print $file_contents;

__DATA__
--keep me
delete me

-- don't not throw this one out.
-- delete every line that does NOT begin with two dashes...
-- is the same as keep every line that begins with two dashes
[download]

s!!password!;y?sordid?binger?;
y.paw.mrk.;;print chr 0x5b ;;;
print;print chr(0x5b+0x2);;;;;
[download]

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker