Re: Splitting a file based on matched conditions

[Marshall]

Below is some "starter code" for you showing another method of doing this. Rather setting flags in the main body of the code, calling a subroutine to handle processing the record can be a good way. If you are in the subroutine, then that means that you are inside the record - no need to have a specific flag for that status..

100K lines isn't big enough to worry much about seeking around. I'd just save the data in a buffer and then decide what to do with it when you see the End line.

You can also look at: Flipin good, or a total flop?

I use a variety of methods for similar tasks with some attention to who I'm writing the code for and the level of Perl expertise I expect them to have. Most of the time the number of lines of code is meaningless as long as it is clear and well structured.

#/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;

#### Not complete code ####
#### This is just a starting framework ###

while (my $line = <DATA>)
{
   handle_section ($line) if $line =~ /^Start:/;
}

sub handle_section
{
   my $start_line  = shift;
   
   my @buf;
   
   my ($parm) = $start_line =~ /Start:(.*)/;
   push @buf, $start_line;
   
   print "Staring Parm is: $parm\n";
   
   my $line;
   while (defined ($line = <DATA>) and $line !~ /End/)
   {
      push @buf, $line; 
   }
   # do something based upon End line (still in $line)
   # If not an End line, then malformed record
   # end of data was reached without an End line
}

__DATA__
Start:/abc/def
.....
End 1.2
Start:/xyz/uvw
.....
End 2.8