simple find replace

[erbrose]

Hey all! been searching around the forum and google this morning looking for a simple way to parse thru a tab delinated file and do a find and replace.

Here is what I've come up with so far as a script (Im still a newbie)

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
 
my $fileInput='d:/temp/test.txt';
my $fileOutput='d:/temp/Newtest.txt';
 
open (READ, $fileInput);
open (WRITE, $fileOutput);
 
while(<READ>){
    my $line=$_;
    chomp($line);
    $line =~ s/','/'.'/g;
    print WRITE $line ."\n";
}
 
close (READ);
close (WRITE);

and no it does not work.
basically I just want to find all the comma's and replace them with periods
Normally this would be easy to do in textpad but the file is about 2 gb and textpad runs out of memory.
Thanks ahead of time for any thoughts and or direction.
Cheers,
Eric

[numberwhun]

Well, in a regex, you wouldn't need the single quotes and a period is a special character in regex's so you would need to escapee it.

Try this:

$line =~ s/,/\./g;
 

Also, next time you are parsing and working on a file, please be sure to post a sample of the data so we can see what you are working with.

Regards,

Jeff

[erbrose]

Thanks Jeff,
So changed the code to reflect your input

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
 
my $fileInput='d:/temp/test.txt';
my $fileOutput='d:/temp/Newtest.txt';
 
open (READ, $fileInput);
open (WRITE, $fileOutput);
 
while(<READ>){
    my $line=$_;
    chomp($line);
    $line =~ s/,/\./g;
    print WRITE $line ."\n";
}
 
close (READ);
close (WRITE);

its still not running. the error I am getting (by running the tool from text pad)
print() on closed filehandle WRITE at D:\temp\find_replace.pl line 14, <READ> line 5.
print() on closed filehandle WRITE at D:\temp\find_replace.pl line 14, <READ> line 6.
etc, etc,etc

the data is tab delineated and looks something like this

1 24/9/2007 00:10:36 0,00 4,6931 48,23323 PL
1 24/9/2007 00:15:36 4,00 4,6931 48,23323 PL
1 24/9/2007 00:20:35 0,00 4,692167 48,23102 PL
1 24/9/2007 06:45:35 0,00 4,692167 48,23102 PL
1 24/9/2007 06:49:39 0,00 4,692167 48,23102 PL
1 24/9/2007 06:49:44 0,00 4,692167 48,23102 PL

the problem is whomever created this file put 'commas' in where the should have been periods.
should look like this
1 24/9/2007 00:10:36 0.00 4.6931 48.23323 PL
1 24/9/2007 00:15:36 4.00 4.6931 48.23323 PL
1 24/9/2007 00:20:35 0.00 4.692167 48.23102 PL
1 24/9/2007 06:45:35 0.00 4.692167 48.23102 PL
1 24/9/2007 06:49:39 0.00 4.692167 48.23102 PL
1 24/9/2007 06:49:44 0.00 4.692167 48.23102 PL

honestly, i don't care if I write to a new file too, just thought it would be easier.
Again thanks ahead of time for your help.
Eric

[numberwhun]

Try changing the open() functions to be the following:

open (READ, "<$fileInput");
open (WRITE, ">>$fileOutput");
 

The default action is to read from an open file, that is why you couldn't write to it. You have to specifically open it for writing to it. The above opens the file for appending to.

Regards,

Jeff

[erbrose]

Thank you sooooo much! that did the trick!
much indebted!
eric

[numberwhun]

Any time! Glad I could help!!!

Regards,

Jeff

[KevinADC]

The dot is just a dot on the replacement side of a substitution regexp:

$_ = 'this,is,test';
s/,/./g;
print;

it is a wild card match only on the search (pattern) side. It is alo a wild card when used in a matching regexp because there is only a search side.