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From: ben@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Ben Fried)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Searching fixed-record-length files
Message-ID: <1990Nov7.233040.8119@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu>
Date: 7 Nov 90 23:30:40 GMT
Organization: Columbia University Center for Computing Activities
Lines: 21

This sounds like something really trivial, but I can't seem to find it
in the manual - I may just not be looking hard enough.

I've got a file containing a database with a fixed record size of 184
characters; there is no record separator.  Same for fields within the
record - they are each a (different) constant size, and are padded with
blanks out to that size.

I was trying to think of a way to slurp in the entire file all at once
(even though it's big - ~8meg), compile the expression to search for,
and then use format to print out the matching records prettily; however,
I'm stuck.  The solutions I come up with are all based around records
and fields all being delimited by some expression, when they're actually
not.

Any suggestions?

Ben
--
Benjamin Fried
ben@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu				rutgers!columbia!ben