my %flag = ();
  while (<IN>) {
      s/\.\d+\s*=\s*/_/; # Format the string to match nicer
      $flag{$1}++ if /(VLAN|if(?:Oper|Admin)Status_(?:up|down))/;
  }

  # Now access $flag{VLAN}, $flag{ifOperStatus_up}, etc.
[download]

That was the first thing I though of also, although I would write it like this:

$found{$1}++ while /($foo|$bar|$baz)/go;
[download]

The only problem in general is that $foo and company cannot contain any "special" regular expression character...it will work, but they will return the match, not the original search, i.e. $foo = "ba.t" would create keys of "bart", "bast", and "bait". Still, if you know your input file well enough to avoid them, a simple hash increment is definitely a smooth way to do it.

Thanks tedv - exactly what I was hoping for.   8^)

Since the SNMP collection code is in the same script, would it make sense to put the collection data into an array instead of the intermediate file, and read array elements into your code?   Would save having to open+close+unlink file, but are there drawbacks ?
    cheers,
    Don
    striving for Perl Adept

Update: and thanks to mdillon for esplaining turnstep's /o syntax above.   More food for thought.   But my brain is full.   {g}

why read from a file and not just probe the devices directly? i would think that files would get out of date extremely quickly.

but i don't see a faster way of rewriting the lines in question.

Hmmm... guess I just hadn't got there yet.

Think I follow you, though - have UCD-SNMP output to variable instead of intermediate file.   Bear with me here, would you use one scalar for the whole thing, or an array of one-line elements?   Highest portcount chassis in my environment is around 400, and 3 lines per port, so over 1000 lines o' info being scanned.

ybiC smiles, as he continues to learn wonders of Perl...

if you're already using UCD-SNMP ( how different is that from SNMP.pm off CPAN?? ), you can do the processing INSTEAD of printing out to the temp file.

i'm taking a stab in the dark here, but if you're using SNMP to fetch data and write a file, then using another script to parse the file, you'd be better off doing the parsing IN the original 'fetch' script and eliminating the intermediate file.

with a large environment, you'll probably need to think about run-time, how often the script is run, and consider using fork() for parallel processing. there is an asyncronous polling feature in SNMP.pm. it might help also.

while $line {
  @collect = split (".", $line);
  "evaluate" $collect[3] or @collect[3..$#collect];
}
[download]

Perhaps like this?

$vlan +=  $filestring =~ /VLAN/g;
$up   +=  $filestring =~ /ifOperStatus.*up[(]1[)]/g;
$down +=  $filestring =~ /ifOperStatus.*down[(]2[)]/g;
$shut +=  $filestring =~ /ifAdminStatus.*down[(]2[)]/g;
[download]

I ended up tweaking tedv's suggestion into script at "(code) mind your snmPs & Qs".   Still have a bit of work on subtraction for total port count - looks like some switch models are reporting loopback or such as ports.
    cheers,
    Don
    striving for Perl Adept