in reply to Variable number of words/fields in a line/record

Sorry to reply to my own post, but I think that I could state my problem a bit more clearly.

How can I capture each "element" of a line, and store it in a variable, regardless of how many elements are in the line? So, if LINE_1 contains 9 elements, I need to create 9 variables. If it contains 10, I need to create 10...and so on.

I know that if someone reads this, they're gonna ask what I'm really trying to do:

The program will grab each element as described, ie: 
conduit permit tcp|host|192.168.1.1|eq|139|host|192.168.2.1

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then, it will ignore "conduit" and "permit", and insert the remaining variables into a database.

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Re: UPDATE: Variable number of words/fields in a line/record
by jeroenes (Priest) on Jun 18, 2001 at 10:58 UTC
    Don't use variables, but an array or hash. Would do something like: 
    while( <> ){
  split;
  splice @_, 0, 2; #removes first two elements
  store_elements_function( @_ ); #sub to store the remainder
}

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    If you really want to name the items, use a hash. Define the names first: 
    my @std_keys = qw/proto .../;
my @ext_keys = qw/name9 name10 name11/;
..
#and in loop:
  my %hash;
  if( @_ < 9 ){
    @hash{@std_keys} = @_;
  } else {
    @hash{(@std_keys, @ext_keys)} = @_;
  }
  print "My proto is: ",$hash{'proto'},"\n";

...

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    Hope this helps. You can read up on it in perldata.

    Jeroen
    "We are not alone"(FZ)

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