Extracting field from a line

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

How can i extract a particular field from a given line. example: 07870635509,3,0,29052002,DORMANT,05011998,1,2,128,0,0,0 In the above line i have to extract 5th field. the size of each field varies from one line to another. so i would like to extract the field using its field number. Thanks for the help

Comment on Extracting field from a line

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Re: Extracting field from a line by jbrugger (Parson) on Jul 14, 2005 at 05:38 UTC
`#!/usr/bin/perl -w use strict; my $str = "07870635509,3,0,29052002,DORMANT,05011998,1,2,128,0,0,0"; my @arr = split(',', $str); print "field5 = $arr[4]";` [download] "We all agree on the necessity of compromise. We just can't agree on when it's necessary to compromise." - Larry Wall.	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: Extracting field from a line by knirirr (Scribe) on Jul 14, 2005 at 08:49 UTC
I usually do this, which is much the same: `my $field5 = [split(/,/,$str)]->[4];` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Extracting field from a line by NetWallah (Canon) on Jul 14, 2005 at 05:45 UTC
In a more general case, your line may contain quoted commas, or escaped commas, causing undesired or unexpected field splitting. I'd suggest using Text::CSV , in order to create more robust code. "Income tax returns are the most imaginative fiction being written today." -- Herman Wouk	[reply]