Re: [MacPerl] sub-search match novice question

[Ken Williams <ken@forum.swarthmore.edu>]

bva@cruzio.com (Bruce Van Allen) wrote:
>At 8:45 AM +0000 9/5/99, Bart Lateur wrote:
>>	local $" = "\t"; # why not?
>>	while(<FILE>) {
>>		chomp;
>>		my @field = split /\t/;
>>		if("@field[2,4,7]" =~ /searchterm/) {
>>			print "Got a match in $_\n";
>>			# prints record
>>		}
>>	}
>[snip]
>
>That's zippy, but I'd prefer to use Perl's grep, although it means 
>slurping in the whole file, which can cost performance-wise if the 
>file is large.

You could split the difference (so to speak):

	while(<FILE>) {
		chomp;
		if( grep {/searchterm/} (split /\t/)[2,4,7] ) {
			print "Got a match in $_\n";
		}
	}

That avoids making the temporary @field (programmable gate?) array, and avoids
the unnecessary string interpolation stuff.

>Now, if you were searching your database for records with a certain 
>zip, they'd only appear in the 7th column. You'd get bogus returns if 
>your method allows the seachterm to match data in any other column.

I got the impression that this was for a keyword search, the target term could
be in any column.


  -------------------                            -------------------
  Ken Williams                             Last Bastion of Euclidity
  ken@forum.swarthmore.edu                            The Math Forum



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