Re^2: Using Perl and WriteExcel to split data from one column to many others

[squarez]

I apologize, I am using the Spreadsheet::WriteExcel module. As I mentioned to roboticus above, the problem is splitting the column data, not fetching and writing from an array. I need to take each entry from the data array, split up that string by "," delineation, then pass those values to the sequential columns. Think of that first column I am returning as a compressed view of a table all in one column.

Thank you for the help :)

[kcott]

I think the confusion stems from (x,y,z,etc) which looks like an array; when, in fact, it's a string, i.e. '(x,y,z,etc)'.

Assuming I've got that right, this piece of code shows how to split the data. I'm still not entirely sure what you mean by "There are also times when there is no data": I've added 3 additional tests with no data between commas, between parentheses and between single-quotes.

#!/usr/bin/env perl

use strict;
use warnings;

use Data::Dumper;

my $res_re = qr{ \A [(] ( .* ) [)] \z }x;

my @all_res = (
    ['(x,y,z,etc)', 'maybe other stuff'],
    ['(x,y,z,etc,,abc,,,def)', 'maybe other stuff'],
    ['()', 'maybe other stuff'],
    ['', 'maybe other stuff'],
);

for (@all_res) {
    my @res = @$_;
    print Dumper \@res;
    $res[0] = '()' unless $res[0];

    my $res_wanted = [ split /,/ => ($res[0] =~ $res_re)[0] ];
    $res_wanted = [ '' ] unless @$res_wanted;
    print Dumper $res_wanted;
    print '-' x 60, "\n";
}

Here's the output:

$ pm_split_res_for_excel.pl
$VAR1 = [
          '(x,y,z,etc)',
          'maybe other stuff'
        ];
$VAR1 = [
          'x',
          'y',
          'z',
          'etc'
        ];
------------------------------------------------------------
$VAR1 = [
          '(x,y,z,etc,,abc,,,def)',
          'maybe other stuff'
        ];
$VAR1 = [
          'x',
          'y',
          'z',
          'etc',
          '',
          'abc',
          '',
          '',
          'def'
        ];
------------------------------------------------------------
$VAR1 = [
          '()',
          'maybe other stuff'
        ];
$VAR1 = [
          ''
        ];
------------------------------------------------------------
$VAR1 = [
          '',
          'maybe other stuff'
        ];
$VAR1 = [
          ''
        ];
------------------------------------------------------------

[squarez]

Thank you for all the help Ken, with your help I was able to find a solution. :)