Re: string error message

[markkawika]

First of all, you can use /x to make that wall of code a lot more readable.

Secondly, you can test the result of the match to verify that you really got 19 values out:

my $result =
(($beginning, $agency, $district, $ssn, $serv_per_m,
  $serv_per_y, $serv_per_t, $last_name, $first_name_i,
  $middle_name_i, $cover_group, $pay_code, $pay_rate,
  $earnings, $holder, $ret_percent, $surv_ben,
  $work_sch_code, $cont_amt, $cont_code, $stuff) =
  /
    (\d)      # $beginning
    (\d{4})   # $agency
    (\d{3})   # $district
    (\d{9})   # $ssn
    (\d{2})   # $serv_per_m
    (\d{2})   # $serv_per_y
    (\d)      # $serv_per_t
    (\D{10})  # $last_name
    (\D)      # $first_name_i
    (\D)      # $middle_name_i
    (\d{5})   # $cover_group
    (\d{2})   # $pay_code
    (\d{8})   # $pay_rate
    (\d{6}\D) # $earnings
    (\s{8})   # $holder
    (\d{4})   # $ret_percent
    (\d{3})   # $surv_ben
    (\d{3})   # $work_sch_code
    (\d{5}\D) # $cont_amt
    (\d{2})   # $cont_code
    (.*\s)    # $stuff
    $
  /x
);

if ($result == 21) {
  # Test the variables
} else {
  # This line did not match
}

[Marshall]

It appears highly likely that you have a non-matching part of the regex that results in an undefined value some of the time. I would use something like code below to debug things. This assigns all of the individual var names into one array (@result) and avoids a mess with specifying each var name.

Run this on your data set and you see what it matching and what is not. Undefined is a "value" and I don't think that just checking scalar @result is enough. Anyway this should show where the program is failing to match, presumably on line 14 of the input.

my @result =   # note @ variable not $variable !!
(($beginning, $agency, $district, $ssn, $serv_per_m,
  $serv_per_y, $serv_per_t,.............);

while (<IN>)
{

   print;
   my @result = (.....blah) #see previous posters code
   my $token_nr=0;
   foreach my $token (@result)
   {
       $token_nr++;
       if (defined ($token) )            #if you try to print an undef
       {                                 #program will bomb
          print "$token_nr++\t$token\n"; #this allows you to see exact
+ly
       }                                 #what is undef without progra
+m
       else                              #bombing
       {
          print "$token_nr++\tUNDEFINED\n";
       }
   }
}

I suspect that your regex is too restrictive. Also fixed column files aren't that common but you may indeed have one. (\D) matches exactly one non-digit charater, to allow say somewhere between 1 and 4 non-digit characters, use (\D{1,4}). for a character set, use say  ([\d-]{9,11}) if ssn could be either 123-45-6789 or 123456789. Use \s* to indidicate zero or more space characters.

[ysth]

That regex won't produce undef for one of the captures only some of the time - the match is failing, so all the variables are presumably undef.

[Marshall]

Not necessarily. That may not happen in the general case. This gets complex. In this particular regex, I think you are right, the first undef results in subsequent undef's. In any event the code I showed will show what happens. As a response I tried to show a method to debug this. The "here is how to grow wheat" instead of "here is some wheat" idea. I'm hoping that it helped.