Reading fixed length records

[tigervamp]

The problem is that I am trying to read a fixed length of test from a file, say the first 200 characters, I tried the following:

$count=200;
$/ = \$count;
open(FILE1,"a.txt");
$record=<FILE1>;
close(FILE1);
print $record;

and the following:

$/ = \2000;
open(FILE1,"a.txt");
$record=<FILE1>;
close(FILE1);
print $record;

but I keep getting the whole file, not a record. I tried this for Linux and Windows. What am I doing wrong?

Thanks,

tigervamp

[tye]

What am I doing wrong?

Trying to use this feature on a version of Perl that doesn't support it.

Update: I'm not sure why, but I decided to expand on this. If you have Perl prior to version 5.6, then setting $/ to \20 will cause <> to read until it finds the string "SCALAR(0xbadf00d)" (approximately).

        - tye (but my friends call me "Tye")

[clintp]

$/=\10;
open(F, "foo.txt") || die;
$rec=<F>;
print length $rec, "\n";
close(F);

Always results in 10, for files of at least 10 bytes. Are you sure your file is 2K long? That's a mighty-big record.

[tigervamp]

Using your exact code, and a file of 52164 bytes, the beginning of which is:

This is a test.
This is a test.
This is a test.
This is a test.This is a test.
This is a test.
This is a test.
...

I always get 52164, not 10.

tigervamp

[Trimbach]

Check out this.

Gary Blackburn
Trained Killer

[tigervamp]

I know that I could use pack/unpack, but I would like to know what I am doing wrong in this case, since there is a very similiar example in "Programming Perl" (pg. 666) that claims to work as described.

tigervamp

[Vynce]

What am I doing wrong?

using <> instead of read.

(Golf score: 24)

[davorg]

Whilst I'd probably use read in this case, there's no reason why to can't use <>. Setting $/ to a reference to a number will set the number of bytes returned each time.

--
<http://www.dave.org.uk>

"Perl makes the fun jobs fun
and the boring jobs bearable" - me

[princepawn]

Parse::FixedLength

[tye]

Is it just me, or do the terms "Parse" and "FixedLength" seem to be at odds with each other? ;)

        - tye (but my friends call me "Tye")