shouldn't this work?

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

I'm having a couple problems with the following. I can't seem to get it to replace the * with !. It leaves the output unchanged.

my $output; 
       while( my $line = <DATA> ) {
           # get rid of line terminator:
           chomp $line;
           # Get rid of line numbers:
           $line =~ s/^N[0-9]{2}\ //;
           # Replace * and the beginning of the line with !:
           $line =~ s/^\*(.*)/!$1/ and print $line and next if $line;
           # Keep any numbers prefixed with X,Y or Z.:
           $line =~ s/(X|Y|Z)([0-9.-]+)/ $2/g if $line;
           # Throw the rest away:
           $line =~ s/[A-Z][0-9.+-]+//g if $line;
           open 
           print $line;
       }
       __DATA__
O1407!SILH 5B NECK PROFILE STD.>
N1! 11-14-01
N2!T1 3/4" ENDMILL
N3! OUTPUT IN ABSOLUTE
N4L0200
N5! SUB NUMBER: 2
N6G90G0X11.108Y-18.25
N7G1Z-1.13F80.
[download]

Also, when I try to read the data in from a file..ie:

$file = "file.txt";
open (FILE, "$file");
       my $output; 
       while( my $line = <FILE> )... etc.
[download]

I don't even get close to the desired output as in the first snippet. I know this is probably an easy fix for the almighty monks...I just can't seem to find what's wrong. Thank you for any help!

Comment on shouldn't this work? Select or Download Code

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Re: shouldn't this work? by Cine (Friar) on Jul 22, 2002 at 17:36 UTC
There are no stars in your input! And your script should work fine if there were. With a little code cleanup it becomes: `my $output; while( my $line = <DATA> ) { # get rid of line terminator: chomp $line; next unless $line; # Get rid of line numbers: $line =~ s/^N[0-9]{2}\ //; # Replace * and the beginning of the line with !: $line =~ s/^\*/!/ and print $line and next; # Keep any numbers prefixed with X,Y or Z.: $line =~ s/(X\|Y\|Z)([0-9.-]+)/ $2/g; # Throw the rest away: $line =~ s/[A-Z][0-9.+-]+//g; print $line; } ...` [download] T I M T O W T D I	[reply] [d/l]
Re: shouldn't this work? by broquaint (Abbot) on Jul 22, 2002 at 17:40 UTC
Change this line `$line =~ s/^\(.)/!$1/ and print $line and next if $line;` [download] to `print("!" . substr($line, 1)) and next if index($line, '*') == 0;` [download] And what purpose does the `if` modifier serve after some of your substitutions (and I guess the spurious `open` is a mis-paste)? I wonder what was wrong with the code examples in your previous node? HTH `_________ broquaint`	[reply] [d/l] [select]