[Boulder.pm] Newbie File Manipulation question

[Jeff Stampes]

Rod Burgess wrote:
> I am new to the Perl world and am trying to learn it.  A coworker tells me 
> that Perl will not work for what I am trying to do
Hopefully your coworker has other fields of expertise that they *are* 
qualified to address.
>  however, I think Perl 
> would be a great tool to use and  I feel this coworker is wrong.
>   
You are correct.  In fact, the stunning thing about your coworker's 
comments is that this sort of work is what perl excels at!
> I have a file that contains several lines all as below:
> DR03555{tab}    45600062888{tab}     00008FLAT WASHER
> DR03555{tab}    228765329{tab}        00001GASKET
>
> The meaning of the file is
> DR03555 = order number
> 45600062888 = part number
> 00008 = quantity
> FLAT WASHER = Description
>
> The lines all begin with the prefex DR  I would like to read this file and 
> produce the following output:
>
> 45600062888;8;FLAT WASHER
> 228765329;1;GASKET
>
> basiclly I need a file that lists the following:  Part#;Quantity;Description
>
> Is this possible with Perl?
>   
In many, many ways!  Here's one:

#!/usr/bin/perl

use warnings;
use strict;

while ( my $orderData = <DATA> ) {
   chomp $orderData;

   my ($quantity, $description );
   my ($orderNumber, $partNumber, $other ) = split /\t/, $orderData;

   if ( $other =~ /^(\d{5})(.+)$/ ) {
      ($quantity, $description) = ( $1, $2 );
   } else {
      die "Bad quantity/description data found\n";
   }

   print "$partNumber;$quantity;$description\n";
}

__DATA__
DR03555    45600062888    00008FLAT WASHER
DR03555    228765329    00001GASKET