Push records to array during implicit loop and write to file


 
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Old 01-12-2010
Perl: Push records to array during implicit loop and write to file

NEWBIE ALERT!

Hi,
I'm 1 month into learning Perl and done reading "Minimal Perl" by Tim Maher (which I enjoyed enoumously). I'm not a programmer by profession but want to use Perl to automate various tasks at my job. I have a problem (obviously) and are looking for your much appreciated help.


THE TASK:
  1. I need to test the records from a text file with fields delimited by semicolon (infile.txt).
  2. At the end of the test I need to generate a report containing the tested records (outfile.txt).
  3. I want to use the implicit file loop available by the -n invocation option to go about the task in an AWKish way (but using AWK is not an option).
  4. By way of the implicit loop the read lines from infile.txt should be pushed into an array.
  5. In the END block the contents of the array should be written to the outfile.
My test file (infile.txt) contains 3 records of 3 semicolon delimited fields each:
1;2;3
a;b;c
4;5;6

The script is invoked from the command line by:
c:\perl test.pl infile.txt

My environment is Strawberry Perl, v.5.10.1 on Windows XP (Hey, I'm using Linux on my home PC!).

My stripped down script (stripped of everything irrelevant to the problem) is called test.pl:

Code:
 
#! usr/bin/perl -wlnaF';'
use strict;
{
  my $outfile = "outfile.txt";  # the name of the file to be written to
  my @resultArray;              # array to be populated by iterating thru the infile
  #### Assign fields to variables
  my $var1 = $F[0];     
  my $var2 = $F[1];     
  my $var3 = $F[2];     
  push @resultArray, ( "$var1 $var2 $var3" ); # Push fields into an array 
  print "Processed infile line no.: $.";      # reveals that all 3 infile lines were processed
  END { 
    print "Result array contains: " . @resultArray . " element(s)."; # reveals only 1 element in array
    writeToFile( \@resultArray, $outfile );    # pass array by reference and filename by value
  }
}
sub writeToFile {
  # Takes a reference to an array and a filename as input
  # Writes the contents of the array to the file
  my $array_ref = $_[0];
  my $filename = $_[1];
  open OUTFILE, "> $filename"
    or die;
  foreach ( @{ $array_ref } ) {
    print OUTFILE;
  }
  close OUTFILE;
}

THE PROBLEM:
Allthough all 3 records from the infile gets processed (a print statement reveals this during processing) only the first record makes it to the array and from the array to the outfile (another print statement and the outfile reveals this).

What am I doing wrong? - pls help!

Best regards,
John

---------- Post updated at 02:06 PM ---------- Previous update was at 12:52 AM ----------

The problem is SOLVED! :-)

By declaring @resultArray private with 'my' it apparantly gets reset every time the script loops through the next line from the infile.

The solution (probably not a nice one) was to declare @resultArray a global variable with 'our' in stead of 'my'.

Last edited by jospan; 01-11-2010 at 08:31 PM.. Reason: Clarifying
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