Filehandle error - rookie needs help!

[NewBoy]

Hi,

I am trying to understand Filehandles properly. I don't really want to know an easier/alternative way of doing this. Instead, I'd like to know why this isn't working. The name of the script file is test_filehandle.

I get the error:

SERVER:~$ test_filehandle
syntax error at ./test_filehandle line 5, near &quot;while <ISDNLOG>&quot;
Execution of ./test_filehandle aborted due to compilation errors.

This is the script:

SERVER:~$ cat test_filehandle 
#!/usr/bin/perl -w

open (ISDNLOG, '/home/cnew/detail_short.20010805') or die "Unable to open ISDNLOG\n\n"; #[open log file]

while <ISDNLOG>

        {
        if (/\w/) 
                {
                print $_;
                }
        }

close ISDNLOG;

I thought it would work as follows: Open the file, and call it ISDNLOG. For each line in ISDNLOG, if the line begins with a word-character, print the line. Close ISDNLOG.

Help appreciated!

 

[NewBoy]

Hi everyone,

Realised my mistake about 5 mins after posting my original enquiry.

In case anyone didn't know (though I doubt this is the case...) I was missing parentheses around the while condition, i.e.:

while (<ISDNLOG>)

Sorry to post something so trivial!

C.

 

[MikeLacey]

you posted the answer as well and you can bet you're not the only person to try it that way..... (not me, of course ) Mike
michael.j.lacey@ntlworld.com
Email welcome if you're in a hurry or something -- but post in tek-tips as well please, and I will post my reply here as well.