Thanks, I was trying this but failing. 

#!/usr/bin/perl


use strict;

my $operon; 
my %operonHash; 


while (<>) { 

chomp; 
if ( /(\b.+?\b)/ ) { # word boundary + any character at least once, up
+ to the first word boundary. 
    #print "Matched: |$`<$&?>$'|\n"; 
    $operon = $_; 
    #print  $& . " " ; 
    $operonHash{$&} = ();  
    } else { 
    print "No match. \n";
    }
    
    print "\n"; 
    
if ( /\w+\|/ ) { # word boundary + any character at least once, up to 
+the first word boundary. 
    print "Matched: |$`<<$&>>$'|\n"; 

    } else { 
    print "No match. \n";
    }

}

[download]
#The problem is, 1. How to get rid of the | from the expression that was found, and 2. How to get MULTIPLE genes before | when more than one gene appears on a line?

In reply to Re^4: Getting data from a file (Operons and Genes). by chrisantha
in thread Getting data from a file (Operons and Genes). by chrisantha

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.