Also, you want to count several things, but you have your count as a single scalar value. That's not going to work.

If the values appear alone, you could do something like

while (<FILE>) {
  chomp;
  foreach $key (keys %exe) {
    $count{$_}++ if ($_ eq $key); 
  }
}

foreach $key (keys %exe) {
  print "Name:$key\t Count:$count{$key}\n";
}
[download]

If the strings you're looking for aren't the only thing in each line you read, you'd better use index or a regex to find them - string comparison won't work.

Ok I tried your code and of course you are right. I changed it so it will return the count of THE VALUES of the array in the file, but the strings have to be on their own lines (as you said). Since the string we're using is the VALUE, it prints the VALUE not the KEY at the end.

I guess I will have to research regex and see what I can do. Just for grins I've attached the code and result. To test it I had to create a file with the exe strings on their own lines.

Thanks again for the help.

Code:

open (FILE, "security2.txt");

print "\n";

%exe = ( "Catalog", 'C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE',
+ "Crime", 'D:\crime\Reader\AcroRd32.exe');

while (<FILE>) {
  chomp;
  foreach $value (values %exe) {
    $count{$_}++ if ($_ eq $value); 
  }
}

foreach $value (values %exe) {
  print "Name:$value\t Count:$count{$value}\n";
}

close(FILE);
[download]

Result:

Name: C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE  Count: 2
Name: D:\crime\Reader\AcroRd32.exe  Count: 1
[download]

Your line  if ($_ = (values %exe)) { is wrong. Very wrong.

1. You're using the assignment operator, not the equality operator.
2. It sounds like your file is a list of numbers, cause you're comparing the value to the number of values in %exe

Not seeing the textfile, we really can't help more.

my %exe = ( "Catalog" => {name=>'C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IE
+XPLORE.EXE',
           count=> 0},
           "Crime" => {name=> 'D:\crime\Reader\AcroRd32.exe',
      count=>0}
);
# You don't need to do #if ($_ = (values %exe)) 
# The value of  $Loop_Variable should   be from the file you read

#Then you can increment using 
  $exe{$Loop_Variable}{count}++;

# Finally, print using
  $exe{$Loop_Variable}{count};
[download]

3/15/2004,3:01:18 PM,Security,Success Audit,Object Access ,560,SERVER\
+refterm,SERVER,"Object Open:
     Object Server:    Security
     Object Type:    File
     Object Name:    C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE
     New Handle ID:    536
     Operation ID:    {0,178316546}

3/15/2004,1:57:28 PM,Security,Success Audit,Object Access ,560,SERVER\
+Anon000,SERVER,"Object Open:
     Object Server:    Security
     Object Type:    File
     Object Name:    D:\crime\Reader\AcroRd32.exe
     New Handle ID:    592
     Operation ID:    {0,177426959}
[download]

Sincere thanks for your help.

Sam Lowry

Hi Sam. This additional information helps, but what output do you want from the above example? Say you're searching for the number of times 'catalog' and 'crime' appear in security.txt, do you want zero for the former and 2 for the latter (which is the number of times these words appear in the section of the file you have shown us)? That would be pretty easy (but you would have to think about whether you want to include 'Crime' (capital first letter), 'crimes' (plural)... and then about how to exclude eg 'Crimean').

Or do you perchance want to open the files in the 'Object Name' field and search these for the words in question, which is not so easy, but eminently feasible (and note that the 'crimes/Crime/Crimean' issue remains)?

dave

HI Dave-

You ask good questions. Disregard my earlier code because it was using the wrong variable to search with (I think that's correct?)

What I am wanting is to find out how many times the long "exe" strings appear in a file. Then print each result with a name for the string rather than the string itself. Eg:

C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE
[download]

in:

3/15/2004,2:29:31 PM,Security,Success Audit,Object Access ,560,SERVER\
+refterm,SERVER,"Object Open:
     Object Server:    Security
     Object Type:    File
     Object Name:    C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE
     New Handle ID:    548
     Operation ID:    {0,178005108}
[download]

Result:

Name: Explorer  Count: 1
[download]

It seems I was walking down the wrong path and will have to use regex (which I have not yet read about, in all honesty) to search for the exe string within each line of text. The 'crime', 'crimean' issue is not a problem because there are no variants of the strings I'd be counting. There are MANY paragraphs like the one above in the file to be searched.

If you have any ideas what this code might look like feel free to offer it :-) I will learn as much on my own in the meantime!

Regards,

Sam