Shell Programming and Scripting

hi,

i am very much new in perl and have this very basic question in the same

the requirement is as below:

i have an input file (txt file) in which i have fields invoice number and customer number. Now i have to take input this combination of invoice n customer number and check in a lookup file (pipe delimited txt file) and if the combination exists, then i have to get the new invoice number (present in lookup table) and append this new invoice number into the original record of the input file.

for example:

input file record: aaabbbinvoicenum1customernum1333

lookup record:11111invoicenum1customernum18888newinvoicenum1


so now original input record becomes:

aaabbbinvoicenum1customernum1333newinvoicenum1

i have to use hash array here in perl with keys as invoice and customer number combination, but me not sure how to use it..

please help me out in solving this...

regards,
Bhups

For a Perl hash %hash, to set value $v with key $k, you can do so by

$hash{$k} = $v;

You can use exists($hash{$k2}) to test if %hash contains the key $k2. If exists, $hash{$k2} will return the value previously set; undef otherwise.

hi moderators...can any body elaborate on the reply/solution???