R. Joseph Newton wrote: >Jan Eden wrote: > >>Hi, >> >>[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >> >>>I have a text file with a records like: >>> >>>smith, James, Dr., 115 Fourth Street, Chicago, IL, 32012, $20.00: >>>[EMAIL PROTECTED] >>> >>>and another text file with placeholders like: >>> >>>Hello $last_name, $first_name: >>> >>>I want to read the first textfile and update the second one. >>> >>>Any ideas! >> >>This is a very general question. Have you already tried something? >>Have your read an Introduction to Perl (O'Reilly's "Learning Perl" >>is highly recommended)? >> >>Basically, what you have is a data file and a template file. You >>should open the data file and read the data into a hash (using >>pattern matching), then merge the hash and the template file >>(replacing your placeholders), putting out a scalar variable for >>each set of data. > >I would do it the other way around. I am guessing here that the OP >wants to use the second file as a tameplate, as you suggest also, but >consider the use of a template. He probably does not want to >actually update the original, but to spawn personalized copies for >each customer/recipient record in the data file. > >Since the text of the template is the material that would be repeated >each time through the loop, the text is what he should slurp. Then >he can go through the data-file record by record, making a >personalized version from the template for each one. > You are probably right and that's what I meant. My description was probably a bit misleading. The way I do it is create the hash, slurp the template file in a scalar and produce an output string for each data set in the hash (which can be written to a new file, named after the respective hash key.
- Jan -- These are my principles and if you don't like them... well, I have others. - Groucho Marx -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <http://learn.perl.org/> <http://learn.perl.org/first-response>
