In general, this kind of problem is very easy to solve in Perl, but your data poses a few problems.

  1. You have multiple columns with the same name
  2. You have commas in your data
You will need a more sophisticated data model than a simple hash, or a method for coming up with unique hash keys. The following is therefore simplistic but shows what can be done.

use strict;
use warnings;

chomp(my $datafile = shift || 'data.file');
my $outputfile = 'output.file';
my @keys_in_display_order = qw/Activity Status Valuation/;
my (%hash);

open my $ifh, '<', $datafile;
open my $ofh, '>', $outputfile;

printf $ofh "%s\n", join '|', @keys_in_display_order;

while(<$ifh>) {
  next unless $_;
  if (/^$keys_in_display_order[0]/) {
    print_it();
    %hash = ();
  }
  $hash{$1} = $2 if (m/(.+):(.+)$/);
}
print_it();

close $ifh;
close $ofh;

sub print_it {
  return unless (%hash);
  printf $ofh "%s\n", join '|', @hash{@keys_in_display_order};
}

[download]
cat output.file
Activity|Status|Valuation
C2012-0106|ISSUED|$339,784.94
C2012-0107|ISSUED|$306,963.74

[download]
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8 (NASB)

In reply to Re: creating hash of hashes from input file by GotToBTru
in thread creating hash of hashes from input file by chimiXchanga

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