Anonymous Monk has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I have a mult-line file, with segments delimited by "%" (one or more on a newline by itself). So for example: 
part1
%%%%%%
part2
%%%%%%
part3
this is still part 3, even though we have a % in it somewhere
the % must be on a newline, like so:
%
So that would have 3 "segments". I want to store this in an array. I think a good way to do this would be to use 'split' (if you can think of a better way, please tell me). I've tried (assume FILE is already open, etc): 
@list = split /.+(%+)/s, <FILE>;

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But it only gets the first line. How would I code this properly? TIA

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
RE: using split on a file
by h0mee (Acolyte) on Feb 15, 2000 at 00:52 UTC
    You should also be able to turn off what perl considers a newline by setting 
    $/ = undef;

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    Now you can 
     
$string = <FILE>;  #since $/ is off, everything
                   #gets slurped into $string

@array = split /%%%%\n/m, $string;  #now we just split on 
                       #the appropriate delimiter, carriage
                       #return included

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Re: using split on a file
by Anonymous Monk on Feb 14, 2000 at 11:17 UTC
    You can try something like this: LOOP: while (<INFILE>) { next LOOP if /^%/; #process segment here } That'll process for any line that doesn't start with a %. Egg, YAPH-and-BOFH-wannabe
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      D'oh! Sorry about the lack of formatting on that one. It should have read 

      LOOP:  while (<INFILE>) {
    next LOOP if /^%/;
    #process segment here
}

      Hope this helps, and that it shows up right this time.

      Egg, YAPH-and-BOFH-wannabe

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Re: using split on a file
by jamescohen (Initiate) on Feb 14, 2000 at 18:42 UTC
    Haven't tested it but this should work

    Using a filehandle (as you were with <FILE>) only returns a line at a time. 

    my ($allsource) ;
while <FILE> {

    $allsource .= $_ ;

}

# Now $allsource contains all of the lines of the file

my (@segments) = split /%{5}/, $allsource ;

# Each element in @segments is one of the segments

# Could undefine $allsource to free a little memory
undef ($allsource) ;

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Re: using split on a file
by Anonymous Monk on Feb 15, 2000 at 11:43 UTC
    You can try something like this: LOOP: 
      while (<INFILE>) {
    next LOOP if /^%/;
    #process segment here
}

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    That'll process for any line that doesn't start with a %. Egg, YAPH-and-BOFH-wannabe
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Re: using split on a file
by Anonymous Monk on Feb 13, 2000 at 06:52 UTC
    How about: @list = split /^%{5}$/m, <FILE>
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Re: using split on a file
by lolindrath (Scribe) on Jan 02, 2001 at 10:27 UTC
    Ok, this is what worked for me (adapted to your code a little). I was using CGI.pm and when I just undefined $/ it really screwed some stuff up. 
    my $OldNewLine = $/;
$/ = undef;
open( FILE, "file" );
my @List = split( /\n%{5}\n/, <FILE> );
close (FILE);
$/ = $OldNewLine;

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    Update: Ignore the above code look at the reply below this.

    --=Lolindrath=--
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      Or, you can use a block. It's neater. 

      my @List=();
{
  local $/ = undef;
  open( FILE, "file" );
  @List = split( /\n%{5}\n/, <FILE> );
  close (FILE);
}
# $/ is back to what it used to be!

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