japhy — Fri, 04 Feb 2000 03:02:00 +0000

Ah, cool Malte. Check out the PerlMonth.com web site -- that's where that column is.

I'm thinking of writing an article specifically on modifying the way data is input and output with the $/, $\, $", and $, variables. Tentative title would be "Funking it Up with the Punctuation Variables" -- but something makes me think that'll have to be changed.

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MIDN 4/C PINYAN, NROTCURPI, US Naval Reserve

Malte — Thu, 03 Feb 2000 22:41:00 +0000

Japhy, I read your article about this on your homepage, so everything is fine.

Thanks,

Malte

Malte — Wed, 02 Feb 2000 23:06:00 +0000

Would this work for a database which contains more than one multi-line string in multiple rows and columns?

Malte

japhy — Wed, 02 Feb 2000 22:57:00 +0000

You can use a line (or record) delimiter other than "\n" in your database. The popular fortune program, for instance, uses %% between its "records". Here's a sample implementation:

code:

open FILE, "filename";
{
  local $/ = "\n%%\n";
  chomp($first = <FILE>);
}
close FILE;
[/code]

The chomp() function does NOT remove the trailing \n on a list of strings -- rather, it removes the trailing value of $/ on a list of strings (it is documented as such, but people think it just removes a trailing newline).

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MIDN 4/C PINYAN, NROTCURPI, US Naval Reserve

Malte — Wed, 02 Feb 2000 16:25:00 +0000

Hey,

whats the best way to save a multi line string in a flat file database.

Do you have to do something like:
s/+(\n)/%linebreak%/g
and then undo the process when reading the file or what would work better?

Thanks,

Malte