Hi

I have a text file in the format:

ID1 > 66
ID2 < 7
ID3 between 6 10

[download]
These values need to be put into strings in such as way as to be inserted into Oracle. So for example, i would have a string $parameters which would contain ID1|ID2|ID3. A second string would be $operators containing >|<|between. A third string would be $values1 containing 66|7|6, and the final string would be $values2 containing ||10. The $values2 string must contain the same number of fields as the others even if the fields are empty (as above). The text file can be in any order i.e. a between may be on the first line.

I have tried several different ways of building the strings, but always get stuck and lost. For example

while ($line=<TEXTFILE>){
    @params = split(/\s/,$line);
    $id = shift @params;
    $op = shift @params;
    
    $parameters.= $id."|";
    $operators .= $op."|";

    if ($op eq 'between'){
        $v = shift @params;     
        $values1 .= $v.'|';
        if ($.>1){
            $v2 = shift @params;
            $values2 .= '|'.$v2;
        }elsif($.==1){
            $v2 = shift @params;
            $values2 .= $v2.'|';
        }
        $values2 .='|';
        $between = 1;
    }

    foreach $value (@params){
        $values .= $value."|";
    }
    
    unless ($between){
        for (@params){
            $v2.='|';
        }
    }
    
}

[download]
But this outputs the following:
$parameters = ID1|ID2|ID3
$operators = >|<|between
$values1 = 66|7|10
$values2 = 10|

[download]
It doesn't loop the required times for $values2 and if a between is in a different place, things really get screwed.

There must be a simpler and cleaner way to do this type of manipulation.

Thanks - sorry for the length!

-----

Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation!

In reply to Building up a string from a text file by joec_

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