I am desperately thankful for any help since I am new to Perl and Linux.

I am trying to write a program to read a file called milcar, which has the following columns:

I would like to set the key as “last_name first_name” and the value as integer2. In case there is a duplicate name I must update the value with the larger “integer2”. I must read another file that has 2 columns <last name> <first name>. I must check each of the name pairs in the 2nd file against, I guess, the hash table. Any matches must be written to user specified outfile. I must also pull all entries out of the hash and sort by first name and use the second name as tie breaker. The sorted list with 3 columns <first> <last> <integer2> will be written to user specified outfile.

I have the program that I have written so far with comments, so I appreciate any tips/suggestions. My main confusion is reading a file into a hash and if I am defining the keys properly (as I am doing so in terms of a multidimensional array, which is probably wrong).

Thank you for any help. -prpheart

#!/user/bin/perl

 

if ($#ARGV != 3) {

                print "At command line, enter 2 files. First is full t
+ext and second is the name text only. Third and fourth are names of o
+utfiles.\n";

die "usage: entermname.pl <command line arg 1> <command line arg 2> <c
+ommand line arg 3> <command line  4>\n";

}

$command_line_parameter1 = $ARGV[0];                           
# This is file with all categories/columns described earlier. 

$command_line_parameter2 = $ARGV[1];                           
# This is file with names to check against.

$command_line_parameter3 = $ARGV[2];                           
# This is output file for matches.

$command_line_parameter4 = $ARGV[3];                           
# This is output file with three columns.

 

$milcar = @milliony;

 

open(inf,"<$milcar");

while(chomp($line = <inf>)){

                ...  # stuck on what to type here

}

 

my %assigned_million = (

"$milliony[$i][0] $milliony[$i][1]" => "$milliony[$i][4]");  
# Am I missing "and" between names in key? 
# Trying to define keys in terms of two-dimensional array

 
$hash_value = $assigned_million{$key};

if(!$hash_value or $value > $hash_value){

                $assigned_million{$key} = $value;        
# changing integer2

}

 

 
$outfile_uno = @newnamecheck;  

my %newnam = (

"$newnamecheck[$i][0] $newnamecheck[$i][1]" => undef);      
# Am I missing "and" between names in key?

 
open(inf,"<$milcar");

while(chomp($line = <inf>)){
..........            # stuck here with loop

}

if($assigned_million{$key} eq $newnamecheck{$key}){

 

open(FH,">>$outfile_dos") or die "Cannot open outfile $outfile_dos\n";

print FH "$assigned_million{$key}\n"; 

close(FH);

} 

 

 

@sorted = sort{$a->[1] cmp $b->[1] || $a->[0] cmp $b->[0]} @milliony;

 

 

open(FH, ">$outfile_dos" or

die "Can't write to $outfile_dos.\n";

{ print FH "$sorted[$i][0], $sorted[$i][1], $sorted[$i][4]"; }

close(FH);
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