Re: How to replace a long string in a text file?

[Tor Hildrum]

perlwannabe wrote:
Now that I have, with all of you helping, dealt with the unlink problem. 
I am now faced with a new problem.

I have a file, myfile.txt, that consists of various text items that are
repetitive.  I am trying to replace many of the repetitive items with a
place holder. Here is an example of myfile.txt:
From the script under you are just replacing lines with a static 
line/value.

<snip>

Perhaps I am attacking this problem wrong by using hex, but it seems
easier to use then text which has carriage returns, tabs, and spaces.
I don't see any reason to use hex.
There is a common idiom to use when searching for repetitions/uniqueness.
## untested example :)
@array = qw(one two one three four);

for (@array) {
   if (defined($unique{$_}) {
      s/$_/replacement/;
   } else {
      $unique{$_}++; ## $unique{$_} is now defined and true.
}                           ## and will be replaced if it comes up again
This works equally well for files, it's just a matter of s/@array/<FH>/
There *might* be a question of memory usage though, depending on
the size of the file your working with.
Also, sort -u would be faster and more efficient if you have large files,
but didn't need the replacement text.
Tor

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