By way of a better explanation, your solution should be something called a "state machine", where at any given time your program is in one of a finite set of "states" (it seems like two states will suffice here). Whether or not you print a given line depends on what state you're in, and there are certain lines that will cause a change of state. Make sense? Here's pseudo-code, which is pretty close to a perl solution:

initial state is "0";

while there's a line that you've read from the file
{
 set state  to "1" if the current line contains "HW/OS/Client"

 print the current line if the current state is "1" (true)

 set state to "0" if the current line is blank (contains only white-sp
+ace)
}
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graff, Here's all the code I have so far:

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

my $PolicyName = "";
my $PolicyType = "";
my $ActivePolicy = "";
my $ClientServer = "";

open(INFILE, '<mas01_policy_dump.txt');

while(<INFILE>) {
    if ($_ =~ "Policy Name") {
        $PolicyName = $_;
        #print $line;
    }
    if ($_ =~ "Policy Type") {
       $PolicyType = $_;
       }
    if (($_ =~ "Active") && ($_ =~ "yes")) {
        $ActivePolicy = $_;
        print $PolicyName;
        print $PolicyType;
        print $ActivePolicy;
        }
    if ($_ =~ "HW/OS/Client") {
        while ($_) {
           next if /^$/;
           $ClientServer = $_;
           print $ClientServer;
           next;
           }
    }
next;
}
[download]


Sorry, but I'm reading books and searching the internet while trying to learn about perl and write this script to do what I need done. So, I'm reading, writing, testing, fixing, reading, writing, testing, fixing.....it's a never ending cycle until I figure out how to do what I need done in Perl. I used to write Unix scripts but that's been years ago. I'm learning perl now because some of the production scripts I now have to help support are in Perl.

You're very close.

The nested "while" loop inside your fourth "if" block is wrong. In fact, as written, it will be an infinite loop, because you're not doing anything to change the value of "$_" -- it remains true "forever".

Just reduce that fourth "if" block to one statement:

    if ($_ =~ "HW/OS/Client") {
        $ClientServer = $_;
    }
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Then add two more "if" blocks:

    if ( $ClientServer ) {
        print;
    }
    if ( /^\s*$/ ) {   # true when the current line is blank
        $ClientServer = "";
    }
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The point is that your "$ClientServer" variable works just fine as a state variable. Whenever it has any non-empty value, you print the current line of input, otherwise, you don't print. You go over all the lines of input with just the one outer "while" loop, and the various "if" conditions will do the right thing.

(As shown above, the blank line following the data block of interest will be included in the output. If you don't want the blank line printed, just put that "if" block above the one that does the "print".)

Policy Name:       BKUP_U_BOX01

  Policy Type:         Standard
  Active:              yes
  Effective date:      06/22/2010 11:55:42
  Client Compress:     no
  Follow NFS Mounts:   no
  Cross Mount Points:  no
  Collect TIR info:    no
  Block Incremental:   no
  Mult. Data Streams:  no
  Client Encrypt:      no
  Checkpoint:          no
  Policy Priority:     0
  Max Jobs/Policy:     Unlimited
  Disaster Recovery:   0
  Collect BMR info:    no
  Residence:           box08-hcart-robot-acs-0
  Volume Pool:         box01_Onsite
  Server Group:        *ANY*
  Keyword:             (none specified)
  Data Classification:       -
  Residence is Storage Lifecycle Policy:    no

Granular Restore Info:  no
  HW/OS/Client:  Solaris       Solaris10     box01
                 Solaris       Solaris10     box07
                 Solaris       Solaris10     box08

  Include:  ALL_LOCAL_DRIVES

  Schedule:          weekly_onsite
    Type:            Full Backup
    Maximum MPX:     1
    Synthetic:       0
    PFI Recovery:    0
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You can use the range operator on the command line, like so:


perl -ne "print if m{^\s*HW/OS/Client:} ... m{^\s*$}" mas01_policy_dum
+p.txt
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which tells Perl to go through every line of the given file and print lines in-between (inclusive) two lines which match:

• first line matches "HW/OS/Client", may begin with optional whitespace
  
• last line matches a blank line
  

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

my $PolicyName = "";
my $PolicyType = "";
my $ActivePolicy = "";
my $ClientServer = "";

open(INFILE, '<mas01_policy_dump.txt');

while(<INFILE>) {
    chomp;
    if ( /^\s*$/ ) { # true when the current line is blank
        next; # No need to process blank lines here
        }
    if ( /------------------------------------------------------------
+/) {
        # Print all the seperators
        print "$_\n";
        next; # No need for further checks
        }

    if ($_ =~ "Policy Name") {
        $PolicyName = $_; # New Policy, pay attention
        next;
    }
    if ($_ =~ "Policy Type") {
       $PolicyType = $_;
       next;
       }
    if ($_ =~ "Active") {
        if ($_ =~ "yes") {
            # Active Policy, we want this stuff
            $ActivePolicy = $_;
            print "$PolicyName\n";
            print "$PolicyType\n";
            print "$ActivePolicy\n";
            next;
            }
        else {
            # Inactive policy, skip ahead
            while(<INFILE>) {
                if ( /------------------------------------------------
+------------/) {
                    print $_;  # CRLF included since no chomp
                    last;
                    }
                }
            }
        }

    # So should be active policy and non blank line from here
    if ($_ =~ "HW/OS/Client" ) {
        # Mutliline!!
        print "$_\n";
        while(<INFILE>) {
            if ( /^\s*$/ ) { last; } # Blank line = end of lines
            chomp;
            print "$_\n";
            }
        next; # I should hit this line only when $_ is blank
        }
}
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