Hi, I need a script to find and replace some stuff from a certain part of a text file (after, say, character 279) and then put the lines back together. i've done this, but I seem to belosing a column of text... there is one character missing in the new files that was in the old ones, but I can't figure out why (or where... though I would guess it's at 279, where by substring stiching goes on).

here is the code 

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

@infile = ('/mnt/ide0/home/wrml/ReturnA/KCRETA60.DAT',
    '/mnt/ide0/home/wrml/ReturnA/KCRETA61.DAT',
    '/mnt/ide0/home/wrml/ReturnA/KCRETA62.DAT',
    '/mnt/ide0/home/wrml/ReturnA/KCRETA63.DAT',
    '/mnt/ide0/home/wrml/ReturnA/KCRETA64.DAT',
    '/mnt/ide0/home/wrml/ReturnA/KCRETA65.DAT',
    '/mnt/ide0/home/wrml/ReturnA/KCRETA66.DAT',
    '/mnt/ide0/home/wrml/ReturnA/KCRETA67.DAT',
    '/mnt/ide0/home/wrml/ReturnA/KCRETA68.DAT',
    '/mnt/ide0/home/wrml/ReturnA/KCRETA69.DAT',
    '/mnt/ide0/home/wrml/ReturnA/KCRETA70.DAT',
    '/mnt/ide0/home/wrml/ReturnA/KCRETA71.DAT',
    '/mnt/ide0/home/wrml/ReturnA/KCRETA72.DAT',
    '/mnt/ide0/home/wrml/ReturnA/KCRETA73.DAT',    
    '/mnt/ide0/home/wrml/ReturnA/KCRETA74.DAT',
    '/mnt/ide0/home/wrml/ReturnA/KCRETA75.DAT',
    '/mnt/ide0/home/wrml/ReturnA/KCRETA76.DAT',
    '/mnt/ide0/home/wrml/ReturnA/KCRETA77.DAT',
    '/mnt/ide0/home/wrml/ReturnA/KCRETA78.DAT',    
    '/mnt/ide0/home/wrml/ReturnA/KCRETA79.DAT',    
    '/mnt/ide0/home/wrml/ReturnA/KCRETA80.DAT',    
    '/mnt/ide0/home/wrml/ReturnA/KCRETA81.DAT',    
    '/mnt/ide0/home/wrml/ReturnA/KCRETA82.DAT',    
    '/mnt/ide0/home/wrml/ReturnA/KCRETA83.DAT',    
    '/mnt/ide0/home/wrml/ReturnA/KCRETA84.DAT',    
    '/mnt/ide0/home/wrml/ReturnA/KCRETA85.DAT',    
    '/mnt/ide0/home/wrml/ReturnA/KCRETA86.DAT',    
    '/mnt/ide0/home/wrml/ReturnA/KCRETA87.DAT',    
    '/mnt/ide0/home/wrml/ReturnA/KCRETA88.DAT',    
    '/mnt/ide0/home/wrml/ReturnA/KCRETA89.DAT',    
    '/mnt/ide0/home/wrml/ReturnA/KCRETA98.DAT',    
    '/mnt/ide0/home/wrml/ReturnA/KCRETA99.DAT',    
    '/mnt/ide0/home/wrml/ReturnA/KCRETA00.DAT',    
    '/mnt/ide0/home/wrml/ReturnA/KEN90.DAT',    
    '/mnt/ide0/home/wrml/ReturnA/KEN91.DAT',    
    '/mnt/ide0/home/wrml/ReturnA/KEN92.DAT',    
    '/mnt/ide0/home/wrml/ReturnA/KEN93.DAT',    
    '/mnt/ide0/home/wrml/ReturnA/KEN94.DAT',    
    '/mnt/ide0/home/wrml/ReturnA/KEN95.DAT',    
    '/mnt/ide0/home/wrml/ReturnA/KEN96.DAT',    
    );
$outpath = '/mnt/ide0/home/wrml/FormatReturnA/';
use File::Basename 'basename';

%substitute = (
    '0000I' => '00000',
    '0000J' => '-0001',
    '0000K' => '-0002',
    '0000L' => '-0003',
    '0000M' => '-0004',
    '0000N' => '-0005',
    '0000O' => '-0006',
    '0000P' => '-0007',
    '0000Q' => '-0008',
    '0000R' => '-0009',
    '0001I' => '-0010',
    '0001J' => '-0011',
    '0001K' => '-0012',
    '0001L' => '-0013'
    );
$alt = join '|', keys(%substitute);
$regex = qr/($alt)/;
open (COUNT, '>', '/mnt/ide0/home/wrml/ReturnA/Counter.txt');
foreach $file (@infile){
    open(IN, '<', "$file") or warn $! and next;
    open(OUT, '>', $outpath.basename($file))
        or warn $! and next;
        while (<IN>) {
            $Line = $_;
            $DataLine = substr($Line, 279);
            $DataLine =~ s/$regex/$substitute{$1}/g;
            $FirstLine = substr($Line, 0, 279); 
            substr($FirstLine, -1, 1) = $DataLine;
            print OUT $FirstLine;        
            $length = length($FirstLine);
                if ($length != 7383) { 
                print COUNT "you have a problem in file $file. The lin
+e is $length\n"
                }
    }
}

[download]
I know I'm losing something because I ran a file to count the lines in each and the original is one character longer. that is, all the lines are 7387 long in the original and 1386 in the new... doing a simple 'length($TheLine)'. what have I done?

please help.

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In reply to Lost Column by wrml

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