Hi, I need guidance with this perl script . I am trying to print a block of lines (say 5 lines at a time). I do have a start line and an end line. I have to look into multiple flat files from which I will be accessing that block. my block of code that I have written is as follows:

open(MYINPUTFIL3, <DATA>);
    MYINPUTFIL3:                   
my $spool1 = 0;
my @a;

while (<MYINPUTFIL3>) {
    if (/start line:/i) {
        
$spool1 = 1;
        next;
    }
    elsif (/End Line:/i) {
        print map { "$_" } @a;
        $SYS=$_;
    $SYS =~ s/\r|\n//g;
       $SYS=~ s/^\s+//;
       $SYS=~ s/\s+$//;
       $SYS1 = $SYS;
       $SYS2 = $SYS;
       $SYS2 = s/[^a-zA-Z]*//g;
       $SYS1 =~ s/[^0-9.]*//g;
@a = ();
    }
    if ($spool1) {
        push (@a, $SYS);
           $SYS=$_;                      
$SYS =~ s/\r|\n//g;
$SYS=~ s/^\s+//;
$SYS=~ s/\s+$//;
$SYS1 = $SYS;
SYS2 = $SYS;
$SYS2 = s/[^a-zA-Z]*//g;
$SYS1 =~ s/[^0-9.]*//g;
last;
   }
                                                                     
}                
close DATA;

[download]

Let me give example of input and output data here:

Input Data:

id1 : /a text lies here/

add name: new add1

ph no: new phone1

country: new country1

id2 : /some other text lies here/

add name: new add2

ph no: new phone2

country: new country2

Desired output:

id2:/some other text lies here/ add name: new add2 ph no: new phone2 country: new country2

So my question is as follows.

1. it prints the details for the Id1 and not Id2 even though I am giving id2 in the if statement (for start Line)

2. I want next 4 lines to be printed. But it prints only one line after the start line.

3. I get output which is distorted(with tabs and new line in it)

Please guide...Stuck....

In reply to printing alternate lines from a file by perl_req

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