As I see it, offering different approaches are very valuable, not only to the OP, but to all monks, and potential Super Searchers. If there are already replies on the OP's question, I think you're allowed to skip giving the specific answer to the question, and jump straight to the alternative way. Heck, we are discussing Perl, so there must be at least one other way to do something (be it better or worse). I think you could even add something like "[monk] suggested yada yada yada, but you can also do it like this ...", but if the "right" solution is already explained three times, because the monks all started typing right off, I think you can even skip that.
Some thing I'd like to draw the attention to, is the use of non-Perl solutions. Is that acceptable? Take for example this node about merging three files. This can easilly be done by the use of nl, join and paste (GNU tools), as I described in my reply. It produces the output the OP wanted and in this specific case, I think the OP only wanted to see the result. My reply started out with 2 downvotes and is currently at 2 plusvotes (so, 4 plus votes really). Is this type of replying thought of as added bonus (CombatSquirrel already posted his Perl solution), or is it redundant, and shouldn't it be posted at all? I am not sure.
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Absolutely. Sometimes the best answer is "You *could* solve that with Perl, but there's an even better answer already available at the Linux command line!"
That's perfectly valid. Why use a chain saw when a butter knife will do?
--t. alex
Life is short: get busy!
ps Because a chain saw is more fun? Yes, I saw that one coming. :)
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