Question

I have a txt file like this
$CHUNK_QTY = “50000”;
$CLIENT = “hi all”;
$CLIENT_CODE = “NMB”;
$COMPOSER = “DIALOGUE”;
$CONTROL_FILE_NAME = “NMBM725.XML”;
$COPY_BASE = “01”;
$CSITE = “NSH”;
$DATA_TYPE = “MET”;
$DIALOGUE_VERSION = “V7R0M624”;
$DISABLE = “N”;
$DPI = “300”;
$DP_BAR_START = “A”;
$DP_BAR_STOP = “Z”;
$DUPLEX = “N”;
$Dialogue_Version = “V7R0M624”;
$EMAIL_ERROR = “Y”;
$EMAIL_ON = “N”;

I have many variables up to 500. I would like to access value for corresponding variable. For example if I want to access $DPI it should print 300 . How do I do that in perl. Any help will be appreciated. I would like something different than regex.

Thanks

Answer 1

Here’s a quick example showing how to take lines in the format that you gave above and put them into a hash:

#!/usr/bin/env perl    

use strict;
use warnings;

my %vars;
while (my $line = <DATA>) {
  chomp $line;          # remove linebreak
  $line =~ s/^\$//;     # Optional: remove $ from start of variable name

  my ($key, $value) = $line =~ /^(\w+)\s*=\s*(.*)$/;
  $value =~ s/;$//;     # Remove trailing semicolon
  $value =~ s/^"//;     # Remove leading double-quotes
  $value =~ s/"$//;     # Remove trailing double-quotes
  $vars{$key} = $value;
} 

for my $key (sort keys %vars) {
  print "$key has value $vars{$key}\n";
}

print "CLIENT says $vars{CLIENT}\n";

__DATA__
$CHUNK_QTY = "50000";
$CLIENT = "hi all";
$CLIENT_CODE = "NMB";
$COMPOSER = "DIALOGUE";
$CONTROL_FILE_NAME = "NMBM725.XML";
$COPY_BASE = "01";
$CSITE = "NSH";
$DATA_TYPE = "MET";
$DIALOGUE_VERSION = "V7R0M624";
$DISABLE = "N";
$DPI = "300";
$DP_BAR_START = "A";
$DP_BAR_STOP = "Z";
$DUPLEX = "N";
$Dialogue_Version = "V7R0M624";
$EMAIL_ERROR = "Y";
$EMAIL_ON = "N";

There should be enough here to get you started, but you’ll need to read up on how to open an actual file (instead of using the __DATA__ section as I did here) for yourself. I recommend checking perldoc open for examples and full details.