A user supplies a file which has a header and a number of rows. The header takes the form:

FA1 '|' FA2 '|' FA3 '|' FA4 [ '|' VA1 .. ]

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where FAn are always-required attribute ids and VAn are zero or more optional attribute ids of no particular limit in number.

The rows thereafter are values for insert or update to the database.

The problem is that when using the split command:

my ( $f1, $f2, $f3, $f4, @v ) = split( /\|/ );

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(under perl version 5.6.1 if that matters) any trailing empty fields are missed from the list, i.e. a DWIM split would convert A|B|| into ['A','B', undef, undef, undef ]or I'd even be able to cope with ['A','B','','',''] but in practice perl split is returning only ['A','B'], preventing me from knowing whether the user entered A|B, A|B||| or for that matter A|B||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

I can see that tuning up the regexp is probably the way to go here, but I don't know how.

Thanks in advance.

-M

Free your mind

In reply to split problem when emptiness is a valid element by Moron

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