Parsing Help

I am trying to filter out the data from a
wrapup data file that contains conversation
between a support staff and a customers. I then stuff those informations into a MySQL database. I know how to seperate the data if it is only one line, but how do you get data from multiple lines. For example (see below): The wrapup note contains multiple lines. How do I assign all those line to a single string variable? So, I can stuff the database with it. Do I screen for the line "******** Agent Notes **********" and make it a starting point, then screen for the line "*** Customer's Email Message ***" and make it an ending point. Take everything in between these two line and assign it to a variable?

Some sample code (reg. exp.) please!

Thanks a lot.

--DVN

SAMPLE DATA FILE:

********** Binding ************
Email Address: ThaBomb@weareit.com
Problem Type: Pricing/Promotion
Customer Type: Consumer

******** Agent Notes **********
Wrap-up Note:
this is email wrap up from conversation
between DVN and customer #12345. Customer
inquired on prices for image capture
software for Nikon microscope 12/20/00.

*** Customer's Email Message ***

Here's one possible solution:

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica">code:</font><HR><pre>
# slurp in the whole file
undef $/;

open FILE, "<$file" or die "Cannot open $file: $!n";
$input = <FILE>;
close FILE;

foreach my $section ( split /**?s*(.*?)s***/, $input) {
chomp($section);
$section =~ s{^s+|s+$}{}g;
next unless $section =~ m{Agents+Notes};

($notes) = $section =~ m{Wrap-ups+Note.(.*)$};
$agent_notes{some_identifier} = $notes;
}
[/code]

*Note that I had to use a kludge for the "Wrap-up" regexp because this forum CGI turns part of it into a smiley, even if you request that smilies be disabled :-(


[This message has been edited by vpopper (edited January 01, 2001).]

Thank you very much for your respond. Looking at your code briefly, it looks like it will work. But I don't understand one line:
($notes) = $section =~ m/Wrap-ups+Note.(.*)$/;

($notes) <=== How does this work?

This is the first time I seen this usage.

--DN

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by ThaBomb:
I don't understand one line:
($notes) = $section =~ m/Wrap-ups+Note.(.*)$/;

($notes) <=== How does this work?
[/quote]

$notes will be assigned the value of the matching text in the parens of the regexp, i.e. everything after "Wrap-up Note:". You could think of it as $1.

Hello vpopper,

I finally had a chance to try your code snippet today and I couldn't get it to work. Am I doing something wrong?

I tried split /**?s*(.*?)s***/ but it didn't work. So I changed it to split /^*+s*(.*?)s**+$/ and it still didn't work.

Here is my code:

#!/usr/bin/perl

$/;

$datadir = "/home/httpd/html/wrap";
open(INFILE, "$datadir/sssss") | | die "Cannot open file: $!n";
$input = <INFILE>;
close(INFILE);

open(OUTFILE,"> $datadir/sample_output.txt") or die "Cannot open file: $!n";
foreach my $section ( split /^*+s*(.*?)s**+$/, $input)
{
chomp($section);
$section =~ s/^s+|s+$//g;
next unless $section =~ m/Agents+Notes/;
($notes) = $section =~ m/Wrap-ups+Note.(.*)$/;
$agent_notes{agent_notes} = $notes;

# Testing printing
print OUTFILE "=============================n";
print OUTFILE "Header ...... $section n";
print OUTFILE "$agent_notes{agent_notes} n";
print OUTFILE "==============================n";
}
close(OUTFILE);

Here is my data:

************* Agent Notes ******************
Wrap-up Note:
ok


********* Customer Transcript **************
Transcript:
Connect Wednesday, November 01, 2000 - 05:11:09 PM
Connected. Ready to assist customer Ijattsu.

Greeting message: Wednesday, November 01, 2000 - 05:11:09 PM
Greetings from blah blah blah

[QUOTE]Originally posted by ThaBomb:
I finally had a chance to try your code snippet today and I couldn't get it to work. Am I doing something wrong?

This line:
$/;

Should be changed to this:
undef $/;

The $/ variable is the input record separator, defaulted to a newline character. If we undef it, we slurp in the whole file rather than one line at a time.

Since you didn't undef it, you only read one line. This line would cause it to be skipped:

next unless $section =~ m/Agents+Notes/;

Also, if you are going to output the section as it is read, you don't need to store it in a hash. You can just output $notes. But you'll also need some identifier for the notes, unless you are just printing them all without association.