Hi all,
I have a file that looks like 
; This is a comment starts with semicolon
*DESCRIPTION
keyword = foo
;
keyword2 = bar
*END
;
*OPERATION
blah
bla
*END

[download]
I have read in this file as a whole. Now I want to do a search and replace only on a particular block, namely the DESCRIPTION block. All blocks start with a "*KEYNAME" and end with a "*END". I want to only deal with the *DESCRIPTION block.

So the questions start..

  1. How can I break this into Blocks so I ensure that I will only work on the DESCRIPTION BLOCK, while at the same time ignoring the contents. I think a split would work, but how do I keep the comments where they are.

  2. As I do my search and replaces, I need to be able to say "Didn't find the $search word, I'm adding the variable before the *ENDS section"

So let's talk code.. 

#!/bin/perl -w
#
# Slurp in the file
open (RUNSET, text.txt} ) || die "Can't access test\n";
my $page = do { local $/, <RUNSET> };
close RUNSET;
# Now How do I selectively find the DESCRIPTION block to
# modify it.  Look out for the comments..  Within the
# DESCRIPTION block I could care less about comments

# Assuming I have the DESCRIPTION block do a search
# What if i Didn't find it, add it at very end before
# the *ENDS.

[download]
Edit by dws for tag cleanup

In reply to Search for a BLOCK of text and selectively replace by Rhodium

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