Hi folks,

I have a file which has the following format

245
record #1
record #2
.
.
record #245
====
165
record #1
record #2
.
.
record #165
====

As you can make out, the first line is the number or records in that set (till "===="). There are 20 such records. Instead of regexing, I used the following 

#initialize some variables
my $records; # No. of records
my $last;  # The last line
my $ini = 1; # set initial line
my $count = 1; # counter


for (my $count = 1; $count <= 20; $count++){
open (OLD, "< $old_file.txt") || die $!; # open file
# Now we need to split up the file into 20 files

open (NEW, "> $old_file$count.txt") || die $!; #open outputfile

while (<OLD>){
    if($. == $ini){
        chomp;
        $records = $_;
    }
}
close OLD;

$last = $ini + $records + 1;

open (OLD, "<$old_file.txt") || die $!; # I am more comfortable with r
+e-opening the file like this
while (<OLD>){
    next unless $. >= $ini;
    print NEW $_;
    last if $. >= $last;
}
close OLD;
close NEW;
$ini = $last + 1;
}

[download]

What I wanted to know was, that in a case like this, would it be better practise to use a regex (since there are well-defined patterns), or use, what to me at least, is a simpler approach.

mndoci

"What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence. The question is, what can you make people believe that you have done?"-Sherlock Holmes in 'A study in scarlet'

In reply to To regex or not to regex by mndoci

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