(Fyi: your post came through in a tiny (illegible) font.)
> #!/usr/sbin/perl
I recommend you start your scripts:
#!/usr/sbin/perl -w
use strict;
This will help identify a lot of basic mistakes.
> if ($line =~ /^([^ ]+)\s+([-a-zA-Z*.]+) *$/) {
The [^ ] bit is the same as [^ ], ie with one space.
It would more typically be written:
\S
The [-a-zA-Z*.] means a minus, or any letter, or an asterisk, or a
period.
> if (! $alignment{$1}) {
$alignment{$i} is never set, so it'll never be true.
> push (@{$ALIGNMENT{$1}}, split("", $line));
$ALIGNMENT{$1} is also never set, so it'll never contain
anything. Note that %alignment and %ALIGNMENT are
not the same hash. (Case is significant in Perl.)
You seem to be mixing up regular arrays (which have
numbered subscripts and are declared with my @array)
and hashes (which have named subscripts and are
declared my %hash). At a glance, you don't need to
use arrays anywhere.
my %hash;
my $bar;
$bar = 'foo';
$hash{$bar} = 'baz';
%hash now contains one element, key 'foo', value 'baz'.
$bar = 'foo';
$hash{$bar} = 'bazzam';
%hash still contains one element, key 'foo', value 'bazzam'.
hth.
