I'm about to parse the output of xlsclients -la. It's like this:

Window 0x800022:
  Machine:  genus
  Name:  xterm
  Icon Name:  xterm
  Command:  xterm -u8 -geometry 156x62+190+-2
  Instance/Class:  xterm/XTerm
Window 0xc00022:
  Machine:  genus
  Name:  ~
  Icon Name:  psh
  Command:  xterm -e /usr/bin/psh
  Instance/Class:  xterm/XTerm
Window 0xe00001:
  Machine:  genus
  Name:  Gecko
  Icon Name:  mozilla-bin
  Command:  mozilla-bin
  Instance/Class:  mozilla-bin/Mozilla-bin

[download]

There's no blank link between "paragraphs" so I can't use $/ = "\n\n". I want to do something simple that gives me whole paragraphs without eating anything (so $/ = "\nWindow" wouldn't fit). I'm thinking about reading six lines at a time but I find it ugly:

open my $fd, 'xlsclients -la|' or die "open: $!";
WHILE: while (1) {
  my @para;
  foreach (1..6) {
    my $line = <$fd>;
    defined $line or last WHILE;
    push @para, $line;
  }
  print "@para\n";   ## quotes intended in this small example
}
close $fd;

[download]

Is there anything more I can do?

--
David Serrano

In reply to Reading chunks of text by Hue-Bond

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