Reading config file with line break character?

[Bernd Fischer]

Hi,

I have a config file with a key value pair

KEY = VALUE

which I read in with

while ( <CONFIG> ) {
chomp; # no newline
s/#.*//; # no comment
s/^\s+//; # no leading withespaces
s/\s+$//; # no ending withespaces
next unless length; # unless something to read
( $var, $value ) = split( /\s*=\s*/, $_, 2 );
$preferences{ $var } = $value;
}

I'm now looking for a solution to read something like

KEY = VALUE1 VALUE2 VALUE3 \
VALUE4 VALUE5

How to modify the regular expressions to accept '\' as a
intentionally linebreak character?

Thanks Bernd

 

[Andy Hassall]

I have a config file with a key value pair

KEY = VALUE

which I read in with

while ( <CONFIG> ) {
chomp; # no newline
s/#.*//; # no comment
s/^\s+//; # no leading withespaces
s/\s+$//; # no ending withespaces
next unless length; # unless something to read
( $var, $value ) = split( /\s*=\s*/, $_, 2 );
$preferences{ $var } = $value;
}

I'm now looking for a solution to read something like

KEY = VALUE1 VALUE2 VALUE3 \
VALUE4 VALUE5

How to modify the regular expressions to accept '\' as a
intentionally linebreak character?

Accumulate partial lines in a variable and go back around the loop. For
example:

my $line = '';
while ( <CONFIG> ) {
chomp; # no newline
s/#.*//; # no comment
s/^\s+//; # no leading withespaces
s/\s+$//; # no ending withespaces
next unless length; # unless something to read

if (s/\s+\\$/ /) { # multi-line expression
$line .= $_;
next;
}

# use $line in the split (may contain multiple previous lines)
( $var, $value ) = split( /\s*=\s*/, $line . $_, 2 );
$preferences{ $var } = $value;
$line = ''; # clear accumulated lines
}

Whether this does what you expect with multi-line expressions with blank lines
or comments in them is up to you. There's also probably more elegant ways of
doing it, perhaps by modifying the while() condition and pushing the partial
lines back onto the source of lines there.

 

[Bernd Fischer]

Thanks I got it.

Bernd

 

[John W. Krahn]

I have a config file with a key value pair

KEY = VALUE

which I read in with

while ( <CONFIG> ) {
chomp; # no newline
s/#.*//; # no comment
s/^\s+//; # no leading withespaces
s/\s+$//; # no ending withespaces
next unless length; # unless something to read
( $var, $value ) = split( /\s*=\s*/, $_, 2 );
$preferences{ $var } = $value;
}

I'm now looking for a solution to read something like

KEY = VALUE1 VALUE2 VALUE3 \
VALUE4 VALUE5

while ( <CONFIG> ) {
if ( s/\\\n// ) { # if line ends in \
$_ .= <CONFIG>; # append next line
redo; # and continue
}
s/#.*//; # no comment
s/^\s+//; # no leading whitespaces
s/\s+\z//; # no ending whitespaces including newline
next unless length; # unless something to read
my ( $var, $value ) = split /\s*=\s*/, $_, 2;
$preferences{ $var } = $value;
}




John