-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker
Be sure to read my standard disclaimer if this is a reply.

  my @records;
  $/ = "\n[";
  while (<>) {
    chomp;
    my( $h, @l ) = split /\n/;
    $h =~ s/^\[//;
    $h =~ s/\]$//;
    push @records, { '[]' => $h, map { split /\s*=\s*/, $_, 2 } @l };
  }
[download]

jdporter
The 6th Rule of Perl Club is -- There is no Rule #6.

use strict;

my %bad = ("Zwire6" => 1, "zwire7" => 1);#this is case sensitive
open(OUT, ">", "out.txt");
my @section;
my $adjust = 0;
my $is_server = 0;
my $server_id;
my $throw_away = 0;

my $line;
while ($line = <DATA>) {
    chomp($line);
    if ($line =~ m/^\[/) {
        flush_section();
        $#section = -1;
        $throw_away = 0;
        push @section, $line;
        if ($line =~ m/^\[server(\d+)\]/) {
            $server_id = $1;
            $is_server = 1;
        } else {
            $is_server = 0;
        }
    } else {
        push @section, $line;
        if ($is_server) {
            if ($line =~ m/^servername\s*=\s*(.*?)\s*$/) {
                if (defined($bad{$1})) {
                    $throw_away = 1;
                    $adjust ++;
                }
            }
        }
    }
}
flush_section();
close(OUT);

sub flush_section {
    if (!$throw_away) {
        if ($is_server) {
            $section[0] = "[server".($server_id - $adjust)."]";
        }
        foreach my $line (@section) {
            print OUT $line, "\n";
        }
    }
}

__DATA__
[reports]
yearlystore = 
quarterlystore = 
monthlystore = 
weeklystore = 
dailystore = 
[server1]
logfilepath1 = F:\Logfiles\ZWire\Zwire4\split-0\ex*.log
servername = Zwire4
logfilepassword = 
logfileusername = 
id = a104136320003954
[server2]
servername = Zwire6
logfilepath1 = f:\logfiles\zwire\zwire6\split-0\ex*.log
id = a104136346513171
logfilepassword = 
logfileusername = 
[server3]
logfilepath1 = F:\Logfiles\ZWire\Zwire4\split-0\ex*.log
servername = Zwire4
logfilepassword = 
logfileusername = 
id = a104136320003954
[server4]
id = a104136351461256
logfilepath1 = f:\logfiles\zwire\zwire7\split-0\ex*.log
logfilepassword = 
servername = zwire7
[download]

Thanks pg!

In the time you must have been writing this, I developed a solution. I discovered that the sequential limitation was avoidable; that is: "serverX+1" did not have to follow "serverX".

So I wrote this:

use strict;
use warnings;
# use re "debug";

my $file = shift @ARGV || die "No file name given!\n";
my $server = shift @ARGV;
my $output = shift @ARGV;

open(IN, "$file") or die "Unable to open file\n";

undef $/;
my $content = <IN>; 

$content =~ s/ ^\[server(\d)\] .*? servername\s=\s$server .*? \[server
+\d\]$/\[server$1\]/msxi

close(IN);
open(OUT, ">$output");

print OUT $content;

close(OUT);
[download]

This only removes one server entry, but it will be easy enough to throw a foreach loop around it.

Thanks again for the help!

Cheers,
ibanix $ echo '$0 & $0 &' > foo; chmod a+x foo; foo;

use strict;

my (@BUFFER,@FINAL); 
my $num;
my $test = "Zwire6";
my $reorder = 0;
my $remove = 0;

while(<DATA>){

if(/$test/ig){ $remove = 1; } # set flag to remove if found

if(/\[server(\d+)\]/){
    if($remove == 1){ undef @BUFFER; $remove = 0; $reorder = 1;}
    if($reorder == 1) { $_ =~s/server$1/server$num/;}
        # renumber the servers 
    push @FINAL, @BUFFER;  # transfer BUFFER to FINAL
    undef @BUFFER;   # empty BUFFER 
    push @BUFFER, $_;  # start over :)
    $num = scalar $1;
    next;
    }
push @BUFFER, $_;
}

if($remove == 1){ undef @BUFFER; $remove = 0; $reorder=1; } 
push @FINAL, @BUFFER; #transfer the last


print @FINAL;   # or send it to yer handle :)


__DATA__
[reports]
yearlystore = 
quarterlystore = 
monthlystore = 
weeklystore = 
dailystore = 
[server1]
logfilepath1 = F:\Logfiles\ZWire\Zwire4\split-0\ex*.log
servername = Zwire4
logfilepassword = 
logfileusername = 
id = a104136320003954
[server2]
servername = Zwire6
logfilepath1 = f:\logfiles\zwire\zwire6\split-0\ex*.log
id = a104136346513171
logfilepassword = 
logfileusername = 
[server3]
id = a104136351461256
logfilepath1 = f:\logfiles\zwire\zwire7\split-0\ex*.log
logfilepassword = 
servername = zwire7
[download]