in reply to replace all but first

Here is my solution. It is no where as elegant and short as the previous ones. Comments on where I can improve this code and what practices I should stay away from are appreciated. 
use strict;

#OPEN FILE A.txt for READING (CHECK FOR FAILURES)
open (INFILE, "<","A.txt" ) or die "Could not open file A.txt: $!";
#OPEN FILE B.txt for WRITING (CHECK FOR FAILURES)
open (OUTFILE, ">","B.txt" ) or die "Could not open file B.txt: $!";

my $prev_country = "";
my $line;
my @myarray;
my $country;
my $company;

while ($line = <INFILE>) {
    # SPLIT THE FILE BETWEEN COUNTRY AND COMPANY
    @myarray = split /></,$line;
    $country = $myarray[0];
    # CHECK TO SEE IF THE CURRENT COUNTRY MATCHS THE PREVIOUS COUNTRY
    if ($prev_country ne $country) {
        #IF NEW COUNTRY PRINT WHOLE LINE
        print OUTFILE "$line";
        $prev_country = ($country);
        next;
    }
    # IF SAME COUNTRY PRINT ONLY COMPANY
    $company = $myarray[1];
    print OUTFILE "\t<$company";
}
close OUTFILE;
close INFILE;

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Non-re solution
by Rhys (Pilgrim) on Sep 04, 2004 at 13:33 UTC
    Not bad, but to keep it a little more re-usable and flexible (suppose, for instance, more tags/values are added later), you can do away with the $company and $country variables altogether, and do: 

    ...
  @myarray = split /></,$line;
  if ( $prev ne $myarray[0] ) {
    $prev = $myarray[0];
  } else {
    $myarray[0] = "<TAB";
  }
  $line = join '><', @myarray;
  print OUTFILE, $line;
...

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    This also takes care of the fact that I think the original author meant <TAB> literally. If I'm wrong, insert this after the join: 

    $line =~ s/<TAB>/\t/;

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