Found it but extracting it...

[cyphrix]

Ok so I wrote a small script that reads a file and extracts the <b>lines</b> that contain the matches I want to extract but I cannot seem to find a way to extract the matches out of those lines. When I run the script I get the following:

1
randomtext randomtext randomtext USER ID: 123456 randomtext

2
randomtext USER ID: 78910 randomtext randomtext randomtext

3
randomtext USER ID: 547695 randomtext USER ID: 345876 random


What I want is just one column of nothing but:

USER ID: 123456
USER ID: 78910
USER ID: 547695
USER ID: 345876

but I don't know how to get rid of everything else or how to tell Perl that all I want is just what has been matched, not the lines in which the match is contained.

This is my code:

open(INFILE, 'userdata.txt') or die "The file could not be found.";

$count = 0

while(<INFILE>) {
     $TheLine = $_;
     $chomp($TheLine);

     foreach($TheLine =~ /USER ID/) {
          open(OUTFILE, ">>UserIDs.txt");
          print OUTFILE "$_\n";
          print OUTFILE "$TheLine\n\n"; { next }
          $count += 1;
          print OUTFILE "Line Count";
          }
}

print "There were $count matches"

Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[MillerH]

Just change the regular expression to save what you're attempting to match explicitly:

open(INFILE, 'userdata.txt') or die "The file could not be found.";

$count = 0

while(<INFILE>) {
	$TheLine = $_;
	$chomp($TheLine);

	foreach ($TheLine =~ [COLOR=blue]/(USER ID: \d+)/g[/color]) {
		open(OUTFILE, ">>UserIDs.txt");
		print OUTFILE "[COLOR=blue]$1[/color]\n";
		print OUTFILE "$TheLine\n\n"; { next }
		$count += 1;
		print OUTFILE "Line Count";
	}
}

print "There were $count matches"

 

[PaulTEG]

Have a google for perlre, or run perldoc perlre on the commandline of your machine

your code with some mods

open(INFILE, 'userdata.txt') or die "The file could not be found.";
[COLOR=green]open(OUTFILE, ">>UserIDs.txt");[/color] #no point in closing and opening file for each match
$count = 0[COLOR=red];[/color]

while(<INFILE>) {
     $chomp($_);
     if(/USER ID: [COLOR=blue][b](\d+)[/b][/color]/) {
        print OUTFILE "USER ID: [COLOR=blue][b]$1[/b][/color]\n";
        $count++;
     }
}

print "There were $count matches"
close INFILE;
close OUTFILE;

Paul
------------------------------------
Spend an hour a week on CPAN, helps cure all known programming ailments ;-)

 

[MillerH]

Slight syntax error there PaulTEG in $chomp($_); Also, $_ is assumed by default of course.

chomp;

That's a whole 5 extra characters you typed. Be sure to stretch out your fingers

 

[cyphrix]

Thanks guys. I appreciate the help! Will definitely check out CPAN also.

I am having a harder time learning Perl but I prefer it already over Python for the specific work I'm doing.

 

[PaulTEG]

MillerH, cheers for pointing that out.

Paul
------------------------------------
Spend an hour a week on CPAN, helps cure all known programming ailments ;-)