Why do i get an extra (duplicate) array element?-

[rickman1]

I am trying to populate an array with dollar amounts from a text file via a while loop. I read them in line by line using substr. When I print out the array contents the last amount is displayed twice:

my $row;
my $val;

while ($row = <IN>)
{
$val = substr($row,0,1);
@tranAmount = substr($row,68,17);

foreach (@tranAmount) {
print "$_\n";
}
}

Output:
10.000
10.000
10.000
-30.000
-30.000 <--why is this happening? there are only 4 values within text file(10, 10, 10 and -30)

My goal is to somehow stuff all neg values within one array and pos values within another, so i can then do math with them, but i am running into this from the get-go, one hurdle at a time i guess. Thank you.

[AnomalousMonk]

We need to see runnable code that is equivalent to the code you're running. The code you've posted cannot ever yield an array with more than a single element:

c:\@Work\Perl\monks>perl -wMstrict -le
"my @list = qw(one two three four);
 ;;
 my @ra;
 for my $item (@list) {
   @ra = $item;
   printf 'print all in @ra: ';
   printf qq{$_ } for @ra;
   print 'done';
   }
"
print all in @ra: one done
print all in @ra: two done
print all in @ra: three done
print all in @ra: four done

Update: E.g., something using push would do the trick:

c:\@Work\Perl\monks>perl -wMstrict -le
"my @list = qw(one two three four);
 ;;
 my @ra;
 for my $item (@list) {
   push @ra, $item;
   printf 'print all in @ra: ';
   printf qq{$_ } for @ra;
   print 'done';
   }
"
print all in @ra: one done
print all in @ra: one two done
print all in @ra: one two three done
print all in @ra: one two three four done

[rickman1]

Thanks for your reply. Actually that is actual code and output. The only thing missing is where i snatch the file name from command line.

 open IN, "<$ARGV[0]"
    or die "Could not open input file '$ARGV[0]' $!";

So i was reading into the push function but cannot seem to get it right. Not sure just where to place it. When i am loading the array via the substr function or printing it out?

[AnomalousMonk]

Please see How do I post a question effectively? and How (Not) To Ask A Question.

[graff]

Based on the last thing you said:

My goal is to somehow stuff all neg values within one array and pos values within another...

I would think you want something like this:

my @pos_array;
my @neg_array;

while ( my $row = <IN> ) {
    if ( /(-\d[.\d]+)/ ) {
        push @neg_array, $1;
    }
    elsif ( /(\d[.\d]+)/ ) {
        push @pos_array $1;
    }
}
# now do stuff with those two arrays...

(There are better regex patterns for matching numeric strings, but the above works in the vast majority of cases.)

As for why your script is doing what it does, well, it's hard to say without seeing the actual input data. How about you post your code with data, like this, so we can see what's happening:

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;

while ( my $row = <DATA>) {
    print $row;
}

__DATA__
10.00
10.00
-30.00

(Of course, your code and/or data will probably look different -- this is just a demonstration of the idea.)

One last point: substr() returns a scalar, not an array; your code is creating an array with a single element on each loop iteration, and that single element is a string of (up to) 17 characters long. The code doesn't make much sense, actually.

[TomDLux]

Why not just use the numeric value in the string:

$ perl -demo

  DB<1> $A = "123"

  DB<2> if ( $A < 0 ) { print 'negative' }else {print 'non-negative'}
non-negative
  DB<3> $A = "-123"

  DB<4>  if ( $A < 0 ) { print 'negative' }else {print 'non-negative'}
negative

[BillKSmith]

Pleas post a complete program (and data) that demonstrates your problem. I cannot duplicate it.

use strict;
use warnings;
*IN = *DATA;
my $row;
my $val;

while ( $row = <IN> ) {
    $val = substr( $row, 0, 1 );
    my @tranAmount = substr( $row, 68, 17 );

    foreach (@tranAmount) {
        print "$_\n";
    }
}
__DATA__
0                                                                   10
+.00000000000000
0                                                                   10
+.00000000000000
0                                                                   10
+.00000000000000
-                                                                   -3
+0.0000000000000

OUTPUT:

10.00000000000000
10.00000000000000
10.00000000000000
-30.0000000000000

UPDATE: Corrected formatting tag

[perlfan]

Post tested input and how you're getting handle <IN>. And if you are not:


use strict;
use warnings;

[rickman1]

From command-line argument. It's a fixed text file, in this case it only contains 4 lines but it can be thousands. The amount is always on that position on every line. The only way i could think of snatching them was through substr.

open IN, "<$ARGV[0]"
    or die "Could not open input file '$ARGV[0]' $!";

Flat text file would be many lines of equal length with the amounts at that same position in every line.

[Marshall]

If you could show us an actual data line(s), then most likely other techniques than substr() could be used. Split with an array slice is often a good approach. Just post your 4 lines within <code>...</code> blocks and we can tell exactly what is going on.