Dividing up Long Lines

moe79 has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hi all,

I need to keep address lines in a file at a maximum of 30 characters. I have a file with these columns:

Address_Line_1 (this is never blank)
Address_Line_2 (this could be blank)
Address_Line_3 (this could be blank)
Address_Line_4 (this is never blank)
City (this is never blank)
State (this is never blank)
Zip (this is never blank)
[download]

I am looking to use perl to check if Address_Line_2 is greater than 30 characters.

If it is, I need to divide Address_Line_2 between Address_Line_2 and Address_Line_3, but only if Address_Line_3 is blank.

If I need to divide Address_Line_2, I would like to divide it at a point in where there is a space.

I'm reading the file in like this:

while (<INFILE>) {    
    @fields = split /\t/, $_;
    $a1 = $fields[0];
    $a2 = $fields[1];
    $a3 = $fields[2];
    $a4 = $fields[3];
    $city = $fields[4];
    $st = $fields[5];
    $zip = $fields[6];

    print OUTFILE pack ("A30", $a1);
    print OUTFILE $TAB; 
    print OUTFILE pack ("A30", $a2);
    print OUTFILE $TAB;
    print OUTFILE pack ("A30", $a3);
    print OUTFILE $TAB;
    print OUTFILE pack ("A30", $a4);
    print OUTFILE $TAB;
    print OUTFILE pack ("A16", $city);
    print OUTFILE $TAB;
    print OUTFILE pack ("A2", $st);
    print OUTFILE $TAB;
    print OUTFILE pack ("A10", $zip);
    print OUTFILE "\r\n";
}
[download]

Many Thanks!

Comment on Dividing up Long Lines Select or Download Code

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Re: Dividing up Long Lines by toolic (Bishop) on Jun 21, 2012 at 16:47 UTC
Text::Wrap might come in handy: `use warnings; use strict; use Data::Dumper; use Text::Wrap; $Text::Wrap::columns = 30; my $col = 'very long string right here ya know'; my @cols = split /\n/, wrap('', '', $col); print Dumper(\@cols); __END__ $VAR1 = [ 'very long string right here', 'ya know' ];` [download] It depends if your address 2 can be 60 or longer, or if it is 30 or more but has no spaces. Otherwise, these may help: length index split	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: Dividing up Long Lines by Anonymous Monk on Jun 23, 2012 at 09:39 UTC
TheDamians Text::Autoformat is also interesting :) $ perl -MText::Autoformat -e " autoformat( {qw/ right 30 all 1 /})" - very long string right here ya know ^Z very long string right here ya know $ perl -MText::Autoformat -e " autoformat( {qw/ right 28 all 1 /})" - very long string right here ya know ^Z very long string right here ya know $ perl -MText::Autoformat -e " autoformat( {qw/ left 2 right 30 all 1 + /})" - very long string right here ya know ^Z very long string right here ya know $ perl -MText::Autoformat -e " autoformat( {qw/ left 2 right 30 all 1 + /})" - Address_Line_1 (this is never blank) Address_Line_2 (this could be blank) Address_Line_3 (this could be blank) Address_Line_4 (this is never blank) ^Z Address_Line_1 (this is never blank) Address_Line_2 (this could be blank) Address_Line_3 (this could be blank) Address_Line_4 (this is never blank) [download] As is Perl6::Form `$ perl -MPerl6::Form -ne " print form q{{[[[{ 30 }[[[[}} , $_" - very long string right here ya know very long string right here ya know ^Z` [download]	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Dividing up Long Lines by Riales (Hermit) on Jun 21, 2012 at 16:47 UTC
Looks like you have a good start so far. Doesn't look like you have inserted any logic for dealing with `if length($a2) > 30` yet. Maybe try doing that first? Did you run into a problem when you tried it?	[reply] [d/l]