question on perl script - Shell Programming and Scripting

gholdbhurg · #1 (**permalink**) 07-23-2008

LOGFILE
========
My name is: ?Anthony Perkins
I am an American citizen.
My name is: ?Donte Suarez
I am a Spanish citizen.
My name is: ? lenny Davis
I am an Australian citizen.
My name is: ?allen rigodeau
I am a French citizen.
My name is: ? manuel williams
I am a Mexican citizen.

OUTPUT
=======
First Name - ANTHONY
Last Name - PERKINS
First Name - DONTE
Last Name - SUAREZ
First Name - LENNY
Last Name - DAVIS
First Name - ALLEN
Last Name - RIGODEAU
First Name - MANUEL
Last Name - WILLIAMS

>>>>>>>>>>

SCRIPT
=======

if ( $currline =~ m/My name is\: \?/ )
{
@record = split(/\?/, $currline);
$message = "$record[1]";
@record2 = split(/ /, $message);
$firstname= "$record2[0]";
$lastname = "$record2[1]";
print OUTPUT "First Name -".$firstname;
print OUTPUT "Last Name -".$lastname;
}

>>>>>>>>>>

For the above logfile, my script would be working properly only on Anthony Perkins and allen rigodeau.
But this no longer works if there's a space after the question mark, or when there's more than one space between the first and last name.

Appreciate your advice.
Thanks.

BMDan · #2 (**permalink**) 07-23-2008

Check out split - perldoc.perl.org. You're splitting the array by spaces, which means if there's more than one space, your array's all off. Try this:

Code:

use Data::Dumper;

if ( $currline =~ m/My name is\: \?/ )
{
        @record = split(/\?/, $currline);
        $message = "$record[1]";
        @record2 = split(/ /, $message);
print Dumper(@record2);
        $firstname= "$record2[0]";
        $lastname = "$record2[1]";
        print OUTPUT "First Name -".$firstname;
        print OUTPUT "Last Name -".$lastname;
}

and you'll see the error.

Reading a bit more, and we can see that what we want is:

Code:

if ( $currline =~ m/My name is\: \?/ )
 {
         @record = split(/\?/, $currline);
         $message = "$record[1]";
         @record2 = split(' ', $message);
         $firstname= "$record2[0]";
         $lastname = "$record2[1]";
         print OUTPUT "First Name -".$firstname;
         print OUTPUT "Last Name -".$lastname;
 }

Alternately, try:

Code:

if ( $currline =~ m/My name is\: \?\s*(\S+)\s+(\S+)/ )
 {
         print OUTPUT "First Name -".$1;
         print OUTPUT "Last Name -".$2;
 }

summer_cherry · #3 (**permalink**) 07-25-2008

Code:

cat file | sed -n '/?/p' | sed 's/?/ /' | awk '{ print "First Nmae-"$(NF-1);print "Last Name-"$NF}'

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