How to divide a line from a text file into 8 digit chunks

[ozgurp]

Hi, It has been five years, now I am a bit rusty but hopefully it will remember everything, I tried to solve this problem myself but did not work. I have a text file and I need to read each line and devide it into 8 digit chunks, and put it into an array. For example, I would like to put the following line into 8 digit chunks but the last chunck is shorter than eight digit so it has to be 7 in this case. Th last chunk can be between 1 and 8 digits:

GRID     213736         15235.2 -2606.28596.178

$array[0] = "GRID    "
$array[1] = " 213736 "
$array[3] = "        "
$array[4] = "15235.2 "
$array[5] = "-2606.28"
$array[6] = "596.178"

Could you help? Thanks.

[BrowserUk]

Take a look at unpack:

my @array = unpack '(a8)*', 'GRID     213736         15235.2 -2606.285
+96.178';;
print for @array;;

GRID
 213736

15235.2
-2606.28
596.178

[moritz]

Another possibility is

my @array = split m/(.{8})/, $string;
@array = grep length, @array

Or a bit nicer

push @array, $1 while $str =~ m/(.{1,8})/g;

TIMTOWTDI (though I personally prefer the unpack solution)

(Update: tested and fixed the solutions)

[ozgurp]

Hi I tried both unpack and your suggestion,

my @array = split m/(.{8})/, $string;

seems to create a size 11 array with some additional spaces whereas unpack creates a size 6 array. But I am not sure why it does that.

[moritz]

seems to create a size 11 array with some additional spaces

This is why I added the line with grep after that.

[balakrishnan]

You might be the interested in the following.

open FH,"./input.txt";

while(<FH>) {
    @arr = ($_ =~ m/.{1,8}/g);
    print join "***\n",@arr;
}

[Anonymous Monk]

This looks like a fixed field length line cut.
The $array[2] line is missing, I am assuming a typo.
Hows about the inelegant

cat text | perl -ne 'chomp ;
              foreach $i(0..length($_)%7) {$x[$i]=substr($_,$i*8,8)};
              foreach $i(0..length($_)%7) {print "\$array[$i]",$x[$i],
+"<\n"}'

with Perl v5.8.1 on text that contains .. GRID 213736 15235.2 -2606.28596.178

$array[0]GRID    <
$array[1] 213736 <
$array[2]        <
$array[3]15235.2 <
$array[4]-2606.28<
$array[5]596.178<

Gannett

[Anonymous Monk]

The $array[2] line is missing, I am assuming a typo. Hows about the inelegant This looks like a fixed field length line cut

cat text | perl -ne 'chomp ;
              foreach $i(0..length($_)%7) {$x[$i]=substr($_,$i*8,8)};
              foreach $i(0..length($_)%7) {print "\$array[$i]",$x[$i],
+"<\n"}'

with Perl v5.8.1 on text that contains ..

GRID     213736         15235.2 -2606.28596.178

$array[0]GRID    <
$array[1] 213736 <
$array[2]        <
$array[3]15235.2 <
$array[4]-2606.28<
$array[5]596.178<

Gannett