#!/usr/bin/perl use warnings; use strict; my %splitting; open my $FILE, '<', 'input_file' or die $!; while (<$FILE>) { chomp; my @columns = split ' '; $splitting{$columns[0]} = [@columns[1 .. $#columns]]; print "@columns[3] \n"; } close $FILE;
So if I print column 1 then it works fine, but it seems that some of my columns aren't whitespace separated but the numbers are stuck together like so: let's say first column is 15,567 and then second column is -25,324 and then third column is -45,234, this in some cases is written as:
15,567 -25,324-45,234(no white space between columns 2 and 3)
This creates a problem and of course returns errors. How can I work around this? I hadn't realised that the columns aren't always space delimited as I'm working with files with over 100,000 lines so couldn't check them all. I tried reformatting the file with an awk line I use quite a lot (awk '{printf "%-5s %25s %-5s \n", $1, $2, $3 }' - used "25s" just as an extreme number to easily see what's happening with my columns) but it doesn't help because again the file has to be space delimited.
Do you have any ideas about how I could reformat my columns so that they have a consistent style? I mean, I know how to use printf but the problem now is that I don't know how to tell perl where each column finishes and the next one begins.
In reply to problem with splitting file on whitespace: how to circumvent inconsistent formatting through file by angela2
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