Question

I have a file that I need to parse in the following format. (All delimiters are spaces):

field name 1:            Multiple word value.
field name 2:            Multiple word value along
                         with multiple lines.
field name 3:            Another multiple word
                         and multiple line value.

I am familiar with how to parse a single line fixed-width file, but am stumped with how to handle multiple lines.

Answer 1

#!/usr/bin/env perl

use strict; use warnings;

my (%fields, $current_field);

while (my $line = <DATA>) {
    next unless $line =~ /\S/;

    if ($line =~ /^ \s+ ( \S .+ )/x) {
        if (defined $current_field) {
            $fields{ $current_field} .= $1;
        }
    }
    elsif ($line =~ /^(.+?) : \s+ (.+) \s+/x ) {
        $current_field = $1;
        $fields{ $current_field } = $2;
    }
}

use Data::Dumper;
print Dumper \%fields;

__DATA__
field name 1:            Multiple word value.
field name 2:            Multiple word value along
                         with multiple lines.
field name 3:            Another multiple word
                         and multiple line value.