FAQ 4.34 How do I extract selected columns from a string?
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From: PerlFAQ Server on 14 Feb 2010 06:00 This is an excerpt from the latest version perlfaq4.pod, which comes with the standard Perl distribution. These postings aim to reduce the number of repeated questions as well as allow the community to review and update the answers. The latest version of the complete perlfaq is at http://faq.perl.org . -------------------------------------------------------------------- 4.34: How do I extract selected columns from a string? (contributed by brian d foy) If you know where the columns that contain the data, you can use "substr" to extract a single column. my $column = substr( $line, $start_column, $length ); You can use "split" if the columns are separated by whitespace or some other delimiter, as long as whitespace or the delimiter cannot appear as part of the data. my $line = ' fred barney betty '; my @columns = split /\s+/, $line; # ( '', 'fred', 'barney', 'betty' ); my $line = 'fred||barney||betty'; my @columns = split /\|/, $line; # ( 'fred', '', 'barney', '', 'betty' ); If you want to work with comma-separated values, don't do this since that format is a bit more complicated. Use one of the modules that handle that format, such as "Text::CSV", "Text::CSV_XS", or "Text::CSV_PP". If you want to break apart an entire line of fixed columns, you can use "unpack" with the A (ASCII) format. by using a number after the format specifier, you can denote the column width. See the "pack" and "unpack" entries in perlfunc for more details. my @fields = unpack( $line, "A8 A8 A8 A16 A4" ); Note that spaces in the format argument to "unpack" do not denote literal spaces. If you have space separated data, you may want "split" instead. -------------------------------------------------------------------- The perlfaq-workers, a group of volunteers, maintain the perlfaq. They are not necessarily experts in every domain where Perl might show up, so please include as much information as possible and relevant in any corrections. The perlfaq-workers also don't have access to every operating system or platform, so please include relevant details for corrections to examples that do not work on particular platforms. Working code is greatly appreciated. If you'd like to help maintain the perlfaq, see the details in perlfaq.pod. |