Re: Newbie question, advice appreciated

[injunjoel]

Greetings all,
One other suggestion is to use HTML::Template, if you have access to CPAN that is. Im not sure how you want to handle the lines but here is a quick mockup that may or may not work for your purposes.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

use HTML::Template;
my $output_template = qq*
<table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="1" bgcolor="#000000">
    <tr bgcolor="#cccccc">
        <td>Function Name:</td><td>Description</td>
    </tr>
    <TMPL_LOOP NAME="functions">
    <tr bgcolor="#ffffff">
        <td valign="top"><TMPL_VAR NAME="name"></td><td valign="top"><
+TMPL_VAR NAME="desc"></td>
    </tr>
    </TMPL_LOOP>
</table>
*;

my @output = do{
    local @_;
        #you will need to replace the DATA handle with 
        #one to your file of interest.
    my $string = do{
                local undef $/; 
                <DATA>
        };
    while($string =~ /\s?STANDARD\s+(.*?)\nfunction\s(\S+)\n?/mg){
        push @_, {name=>$2, desc=>$1};
    }
    @_;
};

my $tmplt = HTML::Template->new(scalarref=>\$output_template,die_on_ba
+d_params=>0);
$tmplt->param({functions=>\@output});

print $tmplt->output();
exit;


__DATA__
blah
blah
blahblah blah 
blah
blah
blah
blahblah blah 
blah
# STANDARD This is some text that describes 
function seventhdoesnotgetenoughsleep 
# STANDARD This is some describing text 
function seventhgetsomesleep
blah
blah
blahblah blah 
blah
# STANDARD This is some description
function seventhgethomesafe
blah
blah
blahblah blah 
blah
# STANDARD This is some text ...nuff said 
function seventhwhyiraq
blah
blah
blahblah blah 
blah

the output is

Function Name:	Description
seventhdoesnotgetenoughsleep	This is some text that describes
seventhgetsomesleep	This is some describing text
seventhgethomesafe	This is some description
seventhwhyiraq	This is some text ...nuff said

Now in your code you will need to change the <DATA> part to read in your file and as dragonchild illustrated, TEST IF OPEN WORKED! Sorry for the caps but its a necessary step. Also you will need to open another handle (and check if it opened) to your output file for writing. Is that what you were thinking?
I hope that helps

Update(s)!
This approach assumes that the file size is not enormous since it reads the entire file into $string. If the files are rather large you probably want to go with a line by line approach.

---

I updated the @output do block code to match across newlines.
Removed obsolete code from do block my @data = split /\#/, $string; .

-InjunJoel