Problem extracting data from text file

hi guys

i've having some problem extracting data from a text file
example if i got a text file with infos like:

Date 2008-05-01 Time 22-10
Date 2008-05-01 Time 21-00
Date 2008-05-02 Time 19-15
Date 2008-05-06 Time 18-00

The Date and Time is like one block
but i need to extract say the all the dates
usually i used

Code: ( text )

my $service_line = index ($original, "T11");
my $service = substr ($original, ($service_line), 3);

but the problem is this index points to Date only once
it doesn't go through all the dates...
any idea how i can achieve getting all the dates extracted in the textfile?

numberwhun

Forum Leader

1,727 Posts

May 12th, 2008
02:45 AM
#2

Re: Problem extracting data from text file

Quote:

Originally Posted by poolboi

Code: ( text )

my $service_line = index ($original, "T11");
my $service = substr ($original, ($service_line), 3);

but the problem is this index points to Date only once
it doesn't go through all the dates...
any idea how i can achieve getting all the dates extracted in the textfile?

Personally, I would open the text file for reading, getting a file handle assigned, then cycle through each line, pulling out the date times. You can either put them out to a file, put them into an array, etc. The choice is yours. You could use something like the following:

Code: ( text )

open(FILE, "<file.txt");
my @array;
while(<FILE>)
{
my $text;
my $date;
my $time;
($text, $date, $time) = split (/\s/, $_);
push(@array, $date);
}

That should do the trick, but please know its untested.

Regards,

Jeff

Ganon11

Moderator

3,239 Posts

May 12th, 2008
04:10 AM
#3

Re: Problem extracting data from text file

Your index and substr combination is a tried and true method...in C, C++, or Java. Perl has regular expressions, and these are indeed the powerhouse behind Perl (and why I like it so much right now). Here's what I'd do:

Code: ( text )

my @date_list = ();
# Open the file for reading:
open my $filehandle, '<', 'file_name-txt'; # You could add 'or die "Error! Couldn't open file: $!" after this to error check.
while (<$filehandle>) { # While the file still has contents, read these into $_
$_ =~ /Date (\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2})/;
my $date = $1;
push @date_list, $date;
}
# Now @date_list holds all the dates, in order of appearance in the text file.

poolboi

Familiar Sight

168 Posts

May 12th, 2008
08:23 AM
#5

Re: Problem extracting data from text file

that's really a lot of suggestion
in the end i did this this

Code: ( text )

my ($data, $data1);
open (FILE1,"file.txt") || die "Couldn't OPEN file!!!\n";
@$data = <FILE1>;
close(FILE1) || die "Couldn't CLOSE file properly!!!\n";
foreach $data1 (@$data)
{
chomp ($data1);
if ($data1 =~ /DATE/){
my $service_line = index ($data1, "DATE");
my $service = substr ($data1, ($service_line+5),10);
print ("$service\n");
}}

it did the job too..is my code alright?