reg ex. problem - 2 variables

praevalesco has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

So here is the deal. I have a program that pulls 3 things from the STDIN... userid and two dates. These dates are then fed into DATE::SIMPLE and DATE::RANGE. I then look at all the files in a given directory and parse through these files for any occurences of the userid... if the userid is found, I then look at the date on this line and check if it is in the range of the two STDIN dates. If so, I write this line to a file. The majority of this program works, I am just getting tripped up on one line.... if ($record =~ m/$userinput/g). I use this piece of code to check the line in the file for the userid (or patient) given at STDIN. This line always returns false.

I have tried an alternate method using index, however it to always returns false. Popping the comma delimited line out into an array and directly comparing is a time consuming option as I allow the user to put in multiple types of input (i.e. patient or userid which are both different fields). Any quick fixes are greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Nick

Full Code:

use Date::Range;
use Date::Simple ();

print "Enter the userid or patient name (partials accepted): ";
$userinput = <STDIN>;

print "Enter the start date: ";
$dateinput1 = <STDIN>;

print "Enter the end date: ";
$dateinput2 = <STDIN>;                    

$date1  = Date::Simple->new($dateinput1);                             
+                           # converts user inputted dates to simple d
+ates
$date2  = Date::Simple->new($dateinput2);

$range = Date::Range->new($date1, $date2);

$dirname = "../normalized/"; 
opendir(DIR, $dirname) or die "can't opendir $dirname";
    while ( defined ($file = readdir DIR) ) {
        next if $file =~ /^[\.nSo]/;                                  
+                          # ensures that folders with n, S or o arent
+ processed 
        $ORIGINALNAME = "../normalized/" . "$file";
        $REPORTNAME = "../normalized/" . $userinput . "-" . $dateinput
+1 . "_" . $dateinput2 . ".csv";        
        open (LOGFILE, $ORIGINALNAME) or die "can't open $ORIGINALNAME
+";
            while ($record = <LOGFILE>) {                             
+                          # While reads records line by line from beg
+inning to end of file
                @stringasarray = split(",", $record);                 
+                           # Takes comma delimited line and breaks in
+to array
                $cutdate = substr ($stringasarray[4],0,10);           
+                         # Identifies date field and chops the time o
+ff the end
                $date3  = Date::Simple->new($cutdate);                
+                            # converts the date to a simple date
                if ($record =~ m/$userinput/g)
                {
                print "TEST2!";
                    if ($range->includes($date3)) {                   
+                          # tests if date from file is within the use
+r inputed dates
                        print "TEST!";
                        #open (REPORT, ">>$REPORTNAME") or die ("Canno
+t open");                  # Open the report file for writing 
                        #print REPORT $record;                        
+                           # Print record to the file
                    } 
                } 
                exit;
            }
    }   
                                                                      
+                          # Close files
close(LOGFILE);
close (REPORT);
closedir(DIR);
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Comment on reg ex. problem - 2 variables Download Code

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Re: reg ex. problem - 2 variables
by grep (Monsignor) on Oct 04, 2006 at 20:03 UTC

chomp

<STDIN>

$userinput

\n

Other than that:
You will run into problems when running without use strict, which makes me guess you are not using use warnings.

Don't comment code self-explanatory code.
Ex.

open (REPORT, ">>$REPORTNAME") or die ("Cannot open");  # Open the rep
+ort file for writing
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grep

One dead unjugged rabbit fish later

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Re^2: reg ex. problem - 2 variables

by GrandFather (Saint) on Oct 04, 2006 at 20:30 UTC

I'd add "Don't comment code so far over in the eastern hemisphere that you need magic or jet travel to get there." All those comments are on the ends of lines and padded so far to the right that on most monitors they would never be seen.

I'd amplify your "Don't comment code self-explanatory code." comment: if you need to comment every line then the code you are writing is too tricky! Remember, it's at least twice as hard to debug something as it is to write it, so if you are writing the cleverest code you can, you can't debug it!

DWIM is Perl's answer to Gödel

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Re^3: reg ex. problem - 2 variables

by mreece (Friar) on Oct 04, 2006 at 23:19 UTC

so far to the right that on most monitors they would never be seen

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Re^2: reg ex. problem - 2 variables

by praevalesco (Initiate) on Oct 04, 2006 at 20:09 UTC

Perfect... who would have thought I'd overlook that. I really appreciate the help. -Nick

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Re: reg ex. problem - 2 variables
by GrandFather (Saint) on Oct 04, 2006 at 20:05 UTC

No way we can help until you provide some code we can run. Start with the following template and add data to reproduce your failure:

use strict;
use warnings;

my $userinput = 'Blah';

while (my $record = <DATA>) {                     
    print "Matched user input against $record" if $record =~ m/$userin
+put/g;
}

__DATA__
Blegh
Blah <- that should match
blah <- and that won't
Yuck
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Prints:

Matched user input against Blah <- that should match
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DWIM is Perl's answer to Gödel

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Re: reg ex. problem - 2 variables
by graff (Chancellor) on Oct 05, 2006 at 02:07 UTC

Run the script with the three user inputs as command line args, and get their values from @ARGV. It really does make life easier for the user, and it's easier to code (e.g. you don't need to chomp the argv strings):

use strict;
use Date::Simple;
use Date::Range;

my $Usage = "Usage:  $0  userid  start-date  end-date
   (dates should be mm/dd/yyyy)\n";  # (is that the date format you wa
+nt?)

@ARGV == 3 or die $Usage;
my ( $userinput, $dateinput1, $dateinput2 ) = @ARGV;

# if the user gives unusable values in @ARGV, the script can
# do "die $Usage" for those cases as well.
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The name of the REPORT file never changes, so you should open it for output just once, before you go into the first while loop.

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