I forgot to mention in my previous post that the if (pat1) {} elsif (pat2) {} elsif ... inside a while loop method is useful when data records is not always in the same order.

In this case, where your "output" format is fixed, it's better (faster) to use a per line parsing method (no while):

#!perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use Data::Dumper;

my %hash = ();

$_ = <DATA>;
/:\s(.*?)\s+\w+\s+:\s(.*?)\s*$/;
$hash{'VLAN'} = $1;
$hash{'STAT'} = $2;
$_ = <DATA>;
/:\s(.*?)\s+\w+\s+:\s(.*?)\s*$/;
$hash{'FID'} = $1;
$hash{'NAME'} = $2;
$_ = <DATA>;
/:\s(.*?)\s+\w+\s\w+:\s(.*?)\s*$/;
$hash{'VTYPE'} = $1;
$hash{'LASTM'} = $2;
$_ = <DATA>;
$_ = <DATA>;
/^\s*(.*?)\s*$/;
$hash{'EP'} = $1;
$_ = <DATA>;
$_ = <DATA>;
/^\s*(.*?)\s*$/;
$hash{'FEP'} = $1;
$_ = <DATA>;
$_ = <DATA>;
/^\s*(.*?)\s*$/;
$hash{'UP'} = $1;

print Dumper( \%hash );

__DATA__
VLAN     : 1           Status     : Enabled
FID      : 1           Name       : Some VLAN with    spaces
VLAN Type: Permanent   Last change: 2009-08-31 16:48:45
 Egress Ports:
host.0.1
 Forbidden Egress Ports:
ge.3.39
 Untagged Ports:
host.0.1

[download]

This way, you can control other things like key names:

$VAR1 = {
          'NAME' => 'Some VLAN with    spaces',
          'LASTM' => '2009-08-31 16:48:45',
          'VTYPE' => 'Permanent',
          'FID' => '1',
          'VLAN' => '1',
          'STAT' => 'Enabled',
          'UP' => 'host.0.1',
          'EP' => 'host.0.1',
          'FEP' => 'ge.3.39'
        };

[download]

Thinking a bit more on my first script, I realize that the string can be also modified in the following way: add a new delimiter just before what we detect as a field name (words separated by exactly one space, before any colon followed by a space), then split:

#!perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use Data::Dumper;

my $string = "";

while(<DATA>) {
    $_ =~ s/\n/  /g;
    $string .= $_;
}

$string =~ s/((\w+\s)*\w+)\s*:\s+/\%$1%/g;
$string =~ s/^\%(.*)/$1\%/;
$string =~ s/\s+\%/\%/g;

my %hash = split (/\%/, $string);

print Dumper( \%hash );

__DATA__
VLAN     : 1           Status     : Enabled
FID      : 1           Name       : Some VLAN with    spaces
VLAN Type: Permanent   Last change: 2009-08-31 16:48:45
 Egress Ports:
host.0.1
 Forbidden Egress Ports:
ge.3.39
 Untagged Ports:
host.0.1

[download]
$VAR1 = {
          'Last change' => '2009-08-31 16:48:45',
          'Status' => 'Enabled',
          'Forbidden Egress Ports' => 'ge.3.39',
          'FID' => '1',
          'VLAN' => '1',
          'Untagged Ports' => 'host.0.1',
          'Egress Ports' => 'host.0.1',
          'Name' => 'Some VLAN with    spaces',
          'VLAN Type' => 'Permanent'
        };

[download]

I also changed the delimiter to another unused char, to differentiate it from the colon inside the time value when trimming out extra spaces.

BTW, this was fun!

In reply to Re^3: Parsing issue by vitoco
in thread Parsing issue by Anonymous Monk

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