in reply to Load regex

The following sample uses a text file to store rules that are applied to a second text file. The database details you can probably sort out for yourself - the technique maps easily.

use strict; use warnings; # First generate a sample data file open (outFile, '>', "delme.txt") or die "Can't create test file: $!"; print outFile <<DATA; Server: win1 ID: D: Space: 6496911360 Server: ux22 ID: D: Space: 7973826560 Server: del2 ID: U: Space: 7973228544 Server: del3 ID: U: Space: 3973228544 DATA close outFile; # Now a file of match patterns open (outFile, '>', "delme.regex") or die "Can't create test file: $!" +; print outFile <<DATA; Space:(\b3\\d+) ServerD:Server: (?i:d) ID:ID: (\\w+) DATA close outFile; #Now the solution code my %matchPatterns; my $matchType = shift; #Build the pattern table open inFile, '<', "delme.regex"; while (<inFile>) { chomp; $matchPatterns{$1} = $2 if /(\w+):(.*)/; } close inFile; if (! defined $matchType) { print "Match type must be one of:\n", join ' ', sort keys %matchPatt +erns; exit -1; } #Scan the text file open inFile, '<', 'delme.txt'; while (<inFile>) { chomp; print "$_\n" if /$matchPatterns{$matchType}/; } close inFile;

With ServerD passed on the command line prints:

Server: del2 ID: U: Space: 7973228544 Server: del3 ID: U: Space: 3973228544

DWIM is Perl's answer to Gödel