#!/usr/bin/perl
#use strict;
#use warnings;
use Data::Dumper;

my @array;
my $line="";
my @data;
my @list;
my $maps_dir="";
my $dir="";
my $part_no="";
my $chg_lvl="";
my $int_lock="";
my $t_spec="";
my $file="";
my $FILE;
my $i=0;
my $num_of_columns;
my $x;
my $y;
my $temp="No";
my $temp1;
my $temp2;

if ($#ARGV == -1)
{
        print("Enter a part number file name:\n");
        chomp($file=<>);
}
else
{
        $file=$ARGV[0];
}
if(!-e $file)
{
        print "File:$file does not exist";
}
open ($FILE,"<$file");
while(<$FILE>)
{
    $i++;
    chomp;
    @data=split/\s+/;
    push @list, [split/\s+/];
    $num_of_columns=@data;
}
#print Dumper( @list ), "\n\n"; 
#print "Number of rows is $i\n";
#print "Number of columns is $num_of_columns\n";

for($x=0;$x<=$i;$x++)
{
        for($y=0;$y<=$num_of_columns;$y++)
        {
                if(!$list[$x][$y])
                {
                        $temp1=$x;
                        $temp2=$y;

                }
        }
}
print $temp1;----->Here it prints the last row instead of the index wh
+ere there is no data
#print $list[1][5], "\n"; # print
close($FILE);
[download]

I think you might have misunderstood this paragraph from stiller's reply.

If some records miss data (...) in say the third column, your split will give you one element less for the line, rather than an array where the third element is undef, which is what you want.

Allow me to rephrase that:

If some records miss data (...) in say the third column, your split will give you one element less for the line, rather than what you want, which is an array where the third element is undef.

In other words, splitting on whitespace will cause problems if any column lacks data. That's why stiller mentions trying to get your data in another format, and wfsp suggests unpack.

You can tell which rows in which there is one or more missing columns, because split will then return less items.

The

$num_of_columns=@data;
[download]

is not correct, you want

$num_of_columns= scalar( @data );
[download]

Then you can do warn "line $i has only $num_of_columns\n" if $num_of_columns < $wanted_num_of_columns;

But, there is no simple way to find out which column is missing, so you really should try the code wfsp gave you, unpack is your friend here :o)

Try his code, and notice that you can do with a lot less variables than you use. Put the unpack into the loop where you read the file, and then you can test which, if any, of the columns that is empty. It will contain only spaces and therefore will match /^\s+$/

...the index of the row and column where the data is missing...

#!/bin/perl5

use strict;
use warnings;
use Data::Dumper;
$Data::Dumper::Indent = 1;
$Data::Dumper::Sortkeys = 1;

# two passes
# first, load the db

my @db;
while (my $rec = <DATA>){
  my @flds = unpack qq{A10xA14xA7xA5xA6xA6}, $rec;
  push @db, \@flds;
}

# second, iterate over it

for my $i (0..$#db){ # each row
  my @row = @{$db[$i]};
  for my $j (0..$#{@row}){ # each field
    if (not $row[$j]){
      printf qq{row: %s col: %s is missing\n}, $i+1, $j+1;;
    }
  }
}

# a field has been removed from each of the last two records
__DATA__
maps_c7    190_520        3195927 00    40     0K8632
maps_c7    210_520        3195928 00    41     0K8701
maps_c7    210_620        3195929 00    42     0K8702
maps_c7    230_560        3195930 00    43     0K8635
maps_c7    230_620        3195931 00    44     0K8703
maps_c7    230_660        3195932 00    45     0K8704
maps_c7    250_660        3195933 00    46     0K8638
maps_c7    250_800        3195934 00    47     0K8705
maps_c7    275_800        3195935 00    48     0K8640
maps_c7    300_860        3195936 00    49     0K8706
maps_c7    300_860_ER     3195937 00    50     0K8642
maps_c7    330_860_ER     3195938 00    51     0K8643
maps_c7    350_860_ER     3195939 00    52     0K8707
maps_c7    300_860_RV     3195940 00    53     0K8645
maps_c7    330_860_RV     3195941 00    54     0K8646
maps_c7                   3195942 00    55     0K8647
maps_c7    360_925_RV             00    56     0K9048
[download]

output:

row: 16 col: 2 is missing
row: 17 col: 3 is missing
[download]

...or corrupt...

For this you will need a set of regexes to define what the fields should contain/look like. You would then validate each field against each regex.

hth