in reply to Using '/r' with '~~ $var' in format

I would suggest changing you approach, I think you are stuffing too much in that one line. You are doing format's job, when you try to control the layout with your own \r and \n's. 

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

my $last_line_label = 'IMPRESSION/PLAN: ';

my $line       =  'I discussed otitis media with her but since her ear
+s are normal today, we do not need to do anything with them.';
my $blank_line = '_____________________________';
my $sig        = 'Marcus Welby, M.D.';
my $prep_by    = 'MW/bnj';

format FLDFMT =

@<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<^<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
$last_line_label, $line
~~     ^<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
$line

       @<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
       $blank_line
       @<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
       $sig
       @<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
       $prep_by
.

    $~ = 'FLDFMT';
write;

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Re: Using '/r' with '~~ $var' in format--"formats on the fly"
by ff (Hermit) on Nov 01, 2002 at 22:11 UTC
    Well, you are right that a practical answer is to change the approach. But there's stuff behind the question that you can't see ;-)

    Quoting Larry/The Camel Book,
    The truly desperate can generate their own format on the fly...

    When my program runs, I won't know what is in the $line string, i.e. it won't always be data types like sig and prep_by. (And I also build the FORMAT definition in a subroutine but I thought that would distract from my question.) Practically speaking, the data will usually be paragraphs with newlines for separators, and it's these blank lines that I particularly want respected. But as my Version D shows, I'd really like any newline within $line to be respected.

[reply]

      What about ditching format? It sounds like your needs will be surpassing what format will do easily (and more importaintly if you do pull it off, it sounds like a maintainence nightmare).

      Template Toolkit sounds like a great fit for you. TT is designed to template any job not just HTML (as long as you don't need pagination)



      grep
      Mynd you, mønk bites Kan be pretti nasti...
[reply]
        It looks like Template Toolkit will be useful for the next stage in my process in which I officially present the data and the user doesn't need it in Word. Thanks for the tip. For this particular stage, I just need to create a rough draft and using 'format' statements will be sufficient (esp. since I've already written the code :-) So the question remains, how might I use \r to achieve embedded newlines that will be respected by '~~ $var' lines within a format statement?
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