insert pipe char

[eeb4u]

I would like to insert a pipe char at the beginning of certain lines in
a data file. I would like this to occur whenever a line ends with a
pipe.

The file has many records, with normally a two lines per record
(sometimes three). The first line is a "header" and the second is the
text. The pipe is a delimiter.

below is a short data example:

field 1|field 2|field 3|
text text text text text
field 1|field 2|field 3|
text text text text text
field 1|field 2|field 3|
text text text text text

I need the pipe before field 1, another process will look for this pipe
to identify a header line.

text lines never contain pipe chars.

Using perl, can I accomplish this or should I use sed etc. I have been
using perl to get the data into this format, but I am open to
suggestions

thanks for any advice,

Mike Dundas

 

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson]

I would like to insert a pipe char at the beginning of certain lines in
a data file. I would like this to occur whenever a line ends with a
pipe.

Using perl, can I accomplish this

Yes.

 

[Bart Lateur]

I would like to insert a pipe char at the beginning of certain lines in
a data file. I would like this to occur whenever a line ends with a
pipe.

s/^/|/ if /|$/

Put this in a 1-line command in your command line shell, and you can do
it without an actual script.

perl -pi~ 's/^/|/ if /|$/' FILE

or, on DOS:

perl -pi~ "s/^/|/ if /|$/" FILE


Drop the -i and whateverfollows if you don't want this to change the
file in place.

perl -p 's/^/|/ if /|$/' FILE >NEWFILE

 

[Brad Baxter]

Using perl, can I accomplish this or should I use sed etc. I have been
using perl to get the data into this format, but I am open to
suggestions

Just curious: If you're using perl to get the data into this format,
can't you insert what you need then?

 

[eeb4u]

Just curious: If you're using perl to get the data into this format,
can't you insert what you need then?

My perl is very limited (very). I get a file from one system in a
somewhat similar format but each record has header and data portion on
the same line. I am capable of splitting the two onto separate lines
with $_=~s/\|"/\|\n"/g; (header part it delimited with pipes), along
with stripping space runs, leading/trailing space and correcting
hyphenation etc. Unfortunately, I was unable to find examples on the
web that were similar enough to my problem where I could modify them
and stick them in my script. I will use the above suggestions, and
post again if I have any problems.

Thanks for all your help.

Mike D

P.S.
I wouldn't post for the fun of it! Why don't you add RTFM to all your
replies Mr. B.

 

[Bart Lateur]

Change all occurrences of

if /|$/

to

if /\|$/

Oh yes, of course. If only I had tested it.

 

[Tad McClellan]

Why don't you add RTFM to all your
replies

Because that is implied with every post to Usenet.