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

I have the data file linecount.txt which contain the following : 
hi.pl ~ 6454
low.pl ~ 757
cow.pl ~ 43
low.pl ~ 757

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I want to read that file and catch the first low.pl and set 
my $file = low.pl;
my $lineCount = 757;

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I am doing something like this 
open(INFILE, "linecount.txt")
my @hold;
while (<INFILE>)
{
push(@hold, $1)&& last if (m/$thefileIamLookingfor/);
}
$value = join(' ', @hold);
my( $file, $linecount) = split(/~/, $value);

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however, I don't get the value , it keeps returning null .. thanks for help or ideas.

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Regex problem
by chromatic (Archbishop) on Jul 16, 2002 at 04:57 UTC

    Unless $thefileIamLookingfor contains an expression with capturing parenthesis, you're not capturing anything. I'm not sure if you're better capturing something, or pushing $_. Pick one. :)

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[d/l]
Re: Regex problem
by zejames (Hermit) on Jul 16, 2002 at 05:13 UTC
    Hello,

    here is how I would do it : 
    $filename = 'cow.pl';
undef $/;
my ($file, $lineCount) = (<DATA> =~ m/^(\Q$filename\E) ~ (\d+)$/m);

__DATA__
hi.pl ~ 6454
low.pl ~ 757
cow.pl ~ 43
low.pl ~ 757

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    HTH

    --
    zejames
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[d/l]
      thanks ;;)
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Re: Regex problem
by Abigail-II (Bishop) on Jul 16, 2002 at 10:08 UTC
    What a piece of garbage code! What on earth are you doing with @hold? Just do something like: 
        open my $fh => "linecount.txt" or die "Open linecount.txt: $!";
    my ($file, $linecount);
    while (<$fh>) {
        ($file, $linecount) = split /\s*~\s*/;        
        last if $file && $file eq $thefileIamLookingfor;
    }

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    Abigail

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[d/l]
[select]
      thanks for the help ,, my code is not garbage ,, it works somtimes :)
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