Question

We need to match certain data element by element that is an output in tabular form obtained on the command prompt.The following is the approach being currently followed wherein the $Var contains the output. Is there an optimal way of doing this without directing the command output to file.

Please share your thoughts.

$Var = "iSCSI Storage     LHN StgMgmt Name  IP              Name
==============================================================
0                 Storage_1         15.178.209.194  admin
1                 acct-mgmt         15.178.209.194  storage1
2                 acct-mgmt2        15.178.209.194  storage2";

@tab = split("\n",$Var);
foreach (@tab) {
    next if ($_ !~ /^\d/);
    $_ =~ s/\s+//g;
    $first=0 if($_ =~ /Storage/i && /15.178.209.194/);
    push(@Array, $_); }

Answer 1

$_ =~ /Storage/i && /15.178.209.194/ is silly. That gets broken up like this: ($_ =~ /Storage/i) && (/15.178.209.194/). Either use $_ consistently or don’t – the // and s/// operators automatically operate on $_.

Also you should know that in the regex /15.178.209.194/, the .s are being interpreted as any character. Either escape them or use the index() function.

Additionally, I would recommend that you separate each line using split(). This allows you to compare each individual column. You can use split() with a regex like so: @array = split(/\s+/, $string);.

Finally, I’m not really sure what $first is for, but I notice that all three sample lines in that input trigger $first=0 as they all contain that IP and the string “storage”.