OxPM: Search and Extract

[Julian Martin]

Thankyou all for your help with this.
Ahhh it all sounds so easy now (a sign of certain disaster). I fear I'm a
little way back down the learning curve compared to you guys so I am sure it
won't take long for you all to become annoyed at my silly questions but
thanks anyway (especially for the vegan recipies Kate : ).

Julian.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Kate L Pugh" <kake at earth.li>
To: <oxford-pm-list at happyfunball.pm.org>
Sent: Thursday, December 05, 2002 12:43 PM
Subject: Re: OxPM: Search and Extract


> On Thu 05 Dec 2002, Neil Hoggarth <neil.hoggarth at physiol.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
> > You could set the input record seperator ("$/", perldoc perlvar for
> > info) to "<p>", then the kind of while(<>) loop that would normally
> > process input line-by-line will work paragraph by paragraph.
>
> Ooh, that's as cunning as a very cunning thing, and much simpler than
> my overengineered solution.  Probably best to do it as a local,
> though, saves hassle of setting it back.
>
> # blah blah blah code
> {
>   local $/ = "<p>";
>   # while loop and processing here
> }
> # more code, with the normal input record separator
>
> Or you could live dangerously and assume that since your script
> doesn't currently do any reading-in of data later on that it never
> will (and that it isn't going to live on for ever and ever and get
> edited/maintained by people who have no idea what $/ means and can't
> be bothered to look it up[0]).
>
> I was going to put a link here to the neat thing I saw on Perlmonks
> that helps you remember how which way round $/ and $\ go, but I can't
> find it now.  Basically it used the mnemonic I/O and you have to
> imagine a raindrop falling down the slash - if it's / then it'll fall
> into I so you know $/ is the input record separator.  If it's \ then
> it'll fall into O so you know $\ is the output record separator.
>
> Other things I have used $\ for recently include reading in SQL
> commands through the <DATA> filehandle - setting it to "\n\n" so I can
> wrap my SQL commands nicely.  See for example
>
http://search.cpan.org/src/KAKE/CGI-Wiki-0.05/lib/CGI/Wiki/Setup/MySQL.pm
>
> Kake
> [0] 'perldoc perlvar' for the bemused - there, you have no excuse now.
> Search it for INPUT_RECORD_SEPARATOR and you'll get the right section.
> --
> http://www.earth.li/~kake/cookery/ - vegan recipes, now with new search
feature
> http://grault.net/grubstreet/ - the open-source guide to London
> http://www.penseroso.com/ - websites for the fine art and antique trade
>