Re^2: File Manipulation - Need Advise!

[bart]

Workout of Old Gray Bear's idea:

my %data;
my $header = <>;  # first line
while(<>) {
    my($key) = split /\t/;
    $data{$key} = $_;
}

# output:
print $header;
foreach my $key (sort keys %data) {
    print $data{$key};
}

To use it as is, call the script with "file2.txt" as parameter on the command line, and redirect the script's STDOUT to "file1.txt".

perl thescript.pl file2.txt >file1.txt

[nashkab]

file1.txt output is the following:-
COMPUTER      DISTRIBUTION_ID    STATUS    
30F-WKS     `1781183799.xxx11'      IC---
30F-WKS     `1781183799.xxxx1'      IC---
ADM34A3F9   `1781183799.41455'      IC---

I want 
COMPUTER      DISTRIBUTION_ID    STATUS    
30F-WKS     `1781183799.xxx11'      IC---
ADM34A3F9   `1781183799.41455'      IC---

[bart]

Like someone said in the Chatterbox: your data may not separated by tabs. Therefore, the whole record (line) would be treated as the id.

Replace split /\t/ in my code, with split /\s+/.

If it still won't work, then use the following code at the end, to test what's in the hash:

use Data::Dumper;
print Dumper \%data;

and see what makes it fail.

[nashkab]

Bart, Its working now!!! How can open file2.txt and print to file1.txt WITHIN THE SCRIPT? Is this possible with your solution???