Probably something like this:
open FILE, "input.txt" or die "Could not open input.txt: $!\n"; # open the
input file containing the records
open OUTFILE, ">output.txt" or die "Could not open output.txt: $!\n";
#output the output file for unique recs
my %addys; # a hash to store the unique recs in
while( <FILE> ) { # loop through the file, store current rec in $_
my @record = split(/|/,$_); # record[0] = lastname
# record[1] = firstname
# record[2] = company
# record[3] = email
print OUTFILE $_ if !$addys{$record[3]}++;
# if we have not seen the email before, then write it to the output file.
}
----- Original Message -----
From: "Hughes, Andrew" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, May 10, 2002 3:14 PM
Subject: Text file manipulation
> I have a pipe delimited text file that I use as a mailing list I have
> information in the following format:
>
> lastname|firstname|company|email|state|date
>
> I am using it as a mailing list. However, over the last half year, it has
> gotten pretty big, and has some duplicates in it. For reporting sake, I
> would like to delete the duplicate records based on email addresses. If
you
> sign up three times, I only want to keep your first record in there.
>
> I want this file:
>
> jones|Bob|Acme1|[EMAIL PROTECTED]|GA|2/25/2002
> jones|Bob|Acme1|[EMAIL PROTECTED]|GA|2/28/2002
> smith|Jan|Acme2|[EMAIL PROTECTED]|FL|3/1/2002
> johnson|Salley|Acmeshop|[EMAIL PROTECTED]|TN|4/5/2002
>
> SMITH|JAN|ACME2|[EMAIL PROTECTED]|FL|5/2/2002
>
> to change to this file:
>
> jones|Bob|Acme1|[EMAIL PROTECTED]|GA|2/25/2002
> smith|Jan|Acme2|[EMAIL PROTECTED]|FL|3/1/2002
> johnson|Salley|Acmeshop|[EMAIL PROTECTED]|TN|4/5/2002
>
> Can anyone point me in the right direction? I appreciate any help.
>
> Thanks,
> Andrew
>
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