The txt files are not that large (about 1000 lines usually) What I want to achieve is this : get all occurrences of :

Orderbook ID: ID_
 Symbol:     xxxxx xxxxx
 ISIN:       SExxxxxxxxx
[download]

and print it out like so : ID:ISIN:SYMBOL

for example : ID_:SExxxxxxxxxx:xxxxx xxxxx

This is what I've written now :

use strict;
use warnings;
use File::Basename;
use Text::ParseWords;
        open (FILE, $ARGV[0]);

sub getValue {
        $_ =~ s/\s//g;
        my ($name, $value) = split(/:/);
        chomp($value);
        return $value;
}

        while (<FILE>) {
        my (@ID,@ISIN,@SYMBOL);
        if ($_ =~ m/ID:/) { @ID = getValue($_); }
        if ($_ =~ m/ISIN:/) { @ISIN = getValue($_); }
        if ($_ =~ m/Symbol:/) { @SYMBOL = getValue($_); }

        my @FULLVAR = (@ID,@ISIN,@SYMBOL);
        my $num = 0;
        my $count = 0;
        foreach (@ID,@ISIN,@SYMBOL) { printf  "$_:"; }
}
} else {
        print "You need to specify an input file \n";
        print "Usage : ".basename($0)." difffile.txt \n";
        exit;
}
[download]

Orderbook ID: XXX
 Symbol:     DUMMY 00OXX
 ISIN:       SE000123456
 Market:     Plain Dummy SE
   ## inactivationTime: [2012-01-01T00:00:00] => [2012-01-10T00:00:00]
   ## XML/Warrant/ReimbursementDay: [2012-01-06] => [2012-01-10]
   ## XML/Warrant/LastTradedDay: [2012-01-06] => [2012-01-10]
   ## unpublicationTime: [2012-01-01T00:00:00] => [2012-01-10T00:00:00
[download]

can everybody please change all of the log file data to the following DUMMY data? please! it's really important!!

---

---

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! —

• How do I compose an effective node title?
• How do I post a question effectively?
• Markup in the Monastery

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:
	&		&
	<		&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.