matching between characters

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

Howdy, Im trying to do something with all the contents of test.txt that starts with
a specific point in the text and ends with another specific point in
the text called #end. Right now this code wont return any
errors or warnings or anything at all actually... I messed
it up somehow... There are multiple #end strings but it should go to
the first one it sees from the start so it shouldnt matter right?

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;

open("test", "<test.txt");
my @array = <test>;
my @ex = grep(!/^####/, @array);
my @test2 = grep(/#bg\sas,([a-z0-9])#end/, @ex);

print @test2;

close("test");

    __DATA__
####---------------------k
####---------------------l
####---------------k
#bg at,super
spaz
razz
tazz
kazz
#end
#bg as,clock
brock
spock
mock
sock
#end
#bf as,lost
fluff
muff
tuff
cuff
#end
#bf aa,sauce
dock
spork
fork
torque
#end
####-------------d-d
####------g-d
[download]

Comment on matching between characters Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: matching between characters by ikegami (Patriarch) on Oct 17, 2008 at 06:25 UTC
Three reasons why your pattern won't match ever: `[...]` matches a single character but you expect it to match more than that. Your don't match newlines anywhere, but there are clearly some present between "#bg" and "#end". No item of the grepped list contains both "#bg" and "#end".	[reply] [d/l]
Re: matching between characters by Anonymous Monk on Oct 17, 2008 at 05:57 UTC
Pay close attention `#!/usr/bin/perl -- use strict; use warnings; open( TEST, "<test.txt") or die "CAN'T READ test.txt : $!"; while(<TEST>){ if( /#bg\sas/ .. /#end/ ) { print } } close TEST or die "CAN'T CLOSE test.txt : $!"; __END__ #bg as,clock brock spock mock sock #end` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: matching between characters by Anonymous Monk on Oct 17, 2008 at 06:08 UTC
Flipin good, or a total flop?	[reply]
Re^2: matching between characters by kwn (Novice) on Oct 17, 2008 at 07:02 UTC
Thanks guys, the example and the reference helped me ALOT!	[reply]