Would you elaborate on your question please? Specifically, if you could provide a couple of rows of data, and indicate what form it currently has. Perhaps it is on disk, perhaps in an AoA, or AoH...

I don't think we can help without more information.

yes, think your right i have replaced the column with white space that needs replacing: input file:

0.00  X  1.000  
0.530 X  0.753
# output values for residue    1
     0
# input   
0.00   X  1.00  
0.555  X  0.683
# output values for residue    2
     0
[download]

so replace the X's with data from oter file:

0.99
0.99
0.99
0.99
[download]

i thought something along the lines

open (FILE, "<filetoedit");
open (NEED, "<insert");
open (OUT, ">dine");

@array = <NEED>;
$end = scalar @array;

$count = 0;

while (<FILE>) {

for ($count = 0; $count < $end; $count++) {
###then some how replace x's with the new values
[download]

1:2:3:4
5:6:7:8
:9:10:11
12:13:14:15
:17:18:19
[download]

a:b:c:d:e
f:g:h:i:j
k:l:m:n:o
p:q:r:s:t
u:v:w:x:y
[download]

use File::Copy;
use strict;
my (@col, $val, $i);
open(COL, "<replace.txt");

while(<COL>) {
    push @col, $_ =~ m/(.*?):/;
}
close(COL);

open(OUT, ">out.txt");
open(COL, "<original.txt");
while(<COL>) {
    ($val) = $_ =~ m/(.*?):/;
    $_ =~ s/(.*?)(?=:)/$col[$i++]/ unless $val =~ m/^\s*$/;
    print OUT $_;
}
close(COL);
close(OUT);
copy("out.txt", "original.txt");
[download]

a:2:3:4
f:6:7:8
:9:10:11
k:13:14:15
:17:18:19
[download]

essentially:

0.00  X  1.000  
0.530 X  0.753
# output values for residue    1
     0
# input   
0.00   X  1.00  
0.555  X  0.683
# output values for residue    2
     0

would become

0.00  0.99  1.000  
0.530 0.99  0.753
# output values for residue    1
     0
# input   
0.00   0.99  1.00  
0.555  0.99  0.683
# output values for residue    2
     0
[download]

Ok, if you simply want to replace the values of 1 arbitrary column in 1 file with the values of 1 arbitrary column in another file, the modified version of what I previously posted will do it.

given the following original file:


1:2:3:4
5:6:7:8
9:10:11:12
13:14:15:16
17:18:19:20
[download]

and the following replacement file:


a:b:c:d:e
f:g:h:i:j
k:l:m:n:o
p:q:r:s:t
u:v:w:x:y
[download]

The following example will replace column 2 of the orginal file with column 3 of the replacement file


#!/usr/bin/perl
use File::Copy;
use strict;
my (@col, @vals, $val, $i);
open(COL, "<replace.txt");

while(<COL>) {
    chomp($_);
    (@vals) = split(":", $_);
    push @col, $vals[1]; #store values for column 2

}
close(COL);

open(OUT, ">out.txt");
open(COL, "<original.txt");
while(<COL>) {
    chomp($_);
    (@vals) = split(":", $_);
    $vals[2] = $col[$i++];    #replace values in column 3
    print OUT join(":", @vals) . "\n";
}
close(COL);
close(OUT);
copy("out.txt", "original.txt");
[download]

original file after running the program:


1:2:b:4
5:6:g:8
9:10:l:12
13:14:q:16
17:18:v:20
[download]


davidj

i ahve tried

while (<FILE>) {

#foreach $line = <FILE> {

for ($count = 0; $count < $end; $count++) {

s/^(\s+\S+\s+\S+\s+\S+\s+\S+\s+\S+\s+\S+\s+\S+)\s+(.*)/$1 $array[$coun
+t]  $2/;
                                           }
print OUT $_;

}

but the entire array is printed at the substitution point?

# input 
  0.00  1.000  0.00  0.00  1.00  0.00  1.00 0.99
  0.99
  0.710  0.000
  0.22  0.780  0.61  0.39  0.17  0.00  0.50 0.99
  0.99
  0.530  0.753
# output values for residue    1
     0
# input 
  0.00  1.000  1.00  1.00  0.00  0.00  0.00 0.99
  0.99
  0.264  0.000
  0.22  0.780  0.56  0.33  0.22  0.00  0.56 0.99
  0.99
  0.555  0.683
# output values for residue    2
     0
[download]