If the only thing you want to edit in your height.txt file, you aim for Laziness and go for the following one-liner:

 perl -pi.bak -e "s/'/\t/" height.txt    # Win32
 perl -pi.bak -e 's/\x27/\t/' height.txt # *nix

[download]

But, as I'm typing this one, I realize there's a big flaw in you scheme: What if the Name of Person1 has a single quote in it? Maybe one of the regexen below could do the trick (and fortunately, the previous one made automatically a backup of the file!)

 Win32 and *nix versions

 perl -pi.bak -e "s/\s(\d+)'(\d+)$/\t$1\t$2/" height.txt
 perl -pi.bak -e 's/\s(\d+)\x27(\d+)$/\t$1\t$2/' height.txt

 perl -pi.bak -e "@r=split(/\t/);$r[2] =~ s/'/\t/;$_=join(qq'\t',@r)" 
+height.txt
 perl -pi.bak -e '@r=split(/\t/);$r[2] =~ s/\x27/\t/;$_=join("\t",@r)'
+ height.txt

[download]

The first one finds two groups of digit separated by a ' at the end of the string, and replace the ' by a tabulation character.

TMTOWTDI!

<kbd>--
my $OeufMayo = new PerlMonger::Paris({http => 'paris.mongueurs.net'});</kbd>

In reply to Re: Opening a file for reading or writing (was: Newbie) by OeufMayo
in thread Opening a file for reading or writing (was: Newbie) by padangboy

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