I have a series of tab-separated files which look like this: 
1        7083
1        7530
1       ----------
1       -7840
3       0
20      00000
4       00001
1       00007
3       00010
1       00011
1       00023
2       00044
3       00100
1       00101
1       00112
1       00120
1       00121
1       00149
1       00186
1       00193
1       00200
2       00202
4       00683
3       00725
3       00727
1       00731
1       00735
1       00738
1       00745
1       00749
1       00761
1       00777
2       00778
1       00784
3       00801
12      00802
3       00803
1       00820
4       00823

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Because the second field represents a zip code, I want to kill any lines in a file which do not conform to zip code requirements. However, my perl one-liner attempts are failing. How can I get this one-liner to change the file so that only lines which match my filter stay? Here is my attempt: 
[tbone@MDB zip-grok]$ perl -pi.bak -e '($count, $zip) = split /\t/; ch
+omp $zip; warn "*$zip*"; next unless ( ($zip =~ /\d{5}/) and ($zip > 
+713) and ($zip < 99930) )' *.dat

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Carter's compass: I know I'm on the right track when by deleting something, I'm adding functionality

edited by ybiC: balanced <readmore> tags

In reply to In-place file filtering by princepawn

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