$text is the ininitialized variable. It isn't set to anything, ever. Warnings and strict would have been helpful to you. I think you want: s/^go/\//g and $count++ while(<FILE>);The way you coded that, $count is the number of substitutions, not the number of lines in the file.

I also think you want to chomp the filename you get from STDIN.

After Compline,
Zaxo

Actually, though, you have several problems. One of which is that   $text = "go" is an assignment, not a test, and not the right test for strings. Fix that, and the problems that strict reports, and you'll be a lot closer to solving this yourself.

# print each line after replacing "go" with "/"
while (<FILE>) {
    $count++ if s/^go/\//;
    print;
}
print STDERR "There were $count lines starting with 'go' in this file\
+n";
[download]

-- Mike

--
just,my${.02}

OK, that worked, but how do I write it back to the same file?
Bobby

Hmmm... if this is the entire script, you could simply pass the filename as a parameter and use the -p and -i switches, something like this:

#/usr/bin/perl -pi.bak
$count++ if s/^go/\//;

END { print STDERR "There were $count lines starting with 'go' in the 
+file\n"; }
[download]

This will automatically overwrite your original file with the new, substituted lines. It will also create a backup file named "<file>.bak" just in case. :-)

If this is not your entire program, then you can just capture its output to a new file, then rename the new file to have the same name as the old one. You could have your program do this itself by printing its output to a new file, then renaming that file. Maybe something like this (this is not the whole program, of course):

open FILE, "< $file" or die "Can't open input file: $!\n";
open OUT, "> '$file.new'" or die "Can't open output file: $!\n";
while (<FILE>) { 
    $count++ if s/^go/\//;
    print OUT;
}
close OUT;
close FILE;
print STDERR "There were $count lines starting with 'go' in the file\n
+";
rename $file, "$file.bak";  # make backup copy
rename "$file.new", $file;  # overwrite original file
[download]

-- Mike

--
just,my${.02}

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

print "\nWhat file would you like to open: ";
chomp ($file = <STDIN>);

print "\nAttempting to open $file\n";

open(FILE, "$file") || die "Unable to open file: $file\n";

while(<FILE>)
{
    $text =~ $_;
    
    if($text eq "go"){
        $text =~ s/^go/\//g;
        $count++;
    }
}
print "There are $count lines in this file\n";

close FILE;
[download]

Woops! change $text =~ $_; --> $text = $_;

Thanks for the help. This is what I have now. But there is a small problem.


#!/usr/bin/perl -w

print "\nWhat file would you like to open: ";
chomp($file = <STDIN>);
print "\nAttempting to open $file\n";

open(FILE, "< $file") || die "Unable to open file: $!\n";
open(OUT, "> '$file.new'") || die"Unable to create new file: $!\n";

while (<FILE>)
{
    $count++;
    $text = $_;
    
    if ($text eq "go")
    {
        $gocount++ if s/^go/\//g;
        print OUT;
    }
    
}

print "\nThere are $count lines in the file\n";
print "Go count equal $gocount\n";

close(OUT) || die "Unable to close OUT file: $!\n";
close(FILE) || die "Unable to close file: $!\n";
[download]


It reads in 9 lines from the file. But only takes 1 go, changes it and writes that 1 to the new file. If I do a while $text eq "go" I get stuck in a loop. Have any clues. I need it to find every go in the file.

Here is the sample file.

go
go
go
go
sam
it
go
go
go

Thanks for the help,
Bobby

you need every line to be cmop'ed $_="go\n" ... chomp() does it.

...
while (<FILE>)
{
    $count++;
    $text = $_;

## this is what you need

    chomp($text);

## this is what you need

    if ($text eq "go")
    {
        $gocount++ if s/^go/\//g;
        print OUT;
...
[download]