in reply to Split file based on field

This is wether short nor elegant, but works: 
use strict;
use warnings;

my $header = <DATA>;
my %handles;

while ( <DATA> )
{
    my $handle;
    my $key = substr($_,0,13);
   
    # check if file is already open
    if ( $handles{$key} )
    {
        $handle = $handles{$key};
    }
    else
    {
        #if not, open it and store the handle
        my $name = $key;
        $name =~ s/://;
        
        open $handle, ">$name.txt" or die $!;
        print $handle $header;
        $handles{$key} = $handle;
    }
    
    print $handle $_;
}

__DATA__
    Usr1369***12556
06-01-0101:00    1169 <snipped off>
06-01-0101:00    2396 <snipped off>
06-01-0103:12    1169 <snipped off>
06-01-0103:12    2569 <snipped off>
06-01-0301:00    1169 <snipped off>
06-01-0301:00    2396 <snipped off>

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holli, /regexed monk/

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Re^2: Split file based on field
by blazar (Canon) on Jan 10, 2006 at 13:40 UTC

    Although both the subject and the description of the problem may suggest that he's after something like the code you suggest, I don't think he really wants to split his input into several different files. I think it's more reasonable to assume he's after something along the lines of:

    #!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;

$\ = $, = "\n";
chomp(my $head=<>);

my ($last,@buffer);
while (<>) {
    chomp;
    my $time = (split)[0];
    if ( $time eq ($last ||= $time) ) {
        push @buffer, $_;
    } else {
        print $head, @buffer;
        ($last,@buffer)=($time,$_);
    }
}
print $head, @buffer;

__END__

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    Note that this assumes the input is ordered, which seems reasonable too, if you read the description carefully. Of course I do not claim it to be the cleanest or smartest way to do it, either.

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