Extracting Multiline Records from a file

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

Hi guys I need some help. Im creating a program that opens a log file with multiline records in it. I am wanting to split these records up and count how many records there are. I have created a program originally which finds particular records for a particular phone number. The code for that is:

while(<LOGFILE>) {
if(/^.*$PhoneNumber$/../^________________________________$/) {
}
[download]

Basically these records have the data start off with 000001 xxxxxx (xxxxxx being the telephone number) and the record ends with ______________________. The one I want to create has a record that starts off with 000001 Call ID 000001. But using the same code it doesn't work. Is there something different I need to do in the if statement?

Comment on Extracting Multiline Records from a file Download Code

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Re: Extracting Multiline Records from a file by davorg (Chancellor) on Jun 25, 2009 at 14:55 UTC
Isn't that exactly what `$/` is for? `{ local $/ = "________________________________\n"; while (<LOGFILE>) { # do stuff with a single record } }` [download] -- See the Copyright notice on my home node. Perl training courses	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Extracting Multiline Records from a file by Transient (Hermit) on Jun 25, 2009 at 14:28 UTC
Not knowing the particular line you're trying to use, try enclosing the `$PhoneNumber` with \Q and \E a la: `/^.*\Q$PhoneNumber\E$ / ...` [download] The \Q and \E tell the perl regex interpreter to ignore special characters that may exist in your `$PhoneNumber` variable (such as parens and dashes)	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Extracting Multiline Records from a file by moritz (Cardinal) on Jun 25, 2009 at 14:43 UTC
You tell us that something doesn't work. We don't know the input data, the regex (ie we don't know what exactly is in `$PhoneNumber`, and we don't know in what way it doesn't work. How do you expect us to help you? Pleas read How (Not) To Ask A Question, and provide more information and sample data (anonymized/randomized if you don't want to exhibit any private data).	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Extracting Multiline Records from a file by si_lence (Deacon) on Jun 25, 2009 at 14:54 UTC
Or maybe - just guessing as the others - you assignment to your $PhoneNumber is not doing what you expect `my $PhoneNumber = 000001; print "[$PhoneNumber] \n"; output: [1]` [download] cheers si_lence	[reply] [d/l]