Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!samsung!sdd.hp.com!wuarchive!psuvax1!psuvm!blekul11!ffaac09
From: FFAAC09@cc1.kuleuven.ac.be (Paul Bijnens)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: format with tilde
Message-ID: <91049.163743FFAAC09@cc1.kuleuven.ac.be>
Date: 18 Feb 91 16:36:43 GMT
Organization: K.U.Leuven - Academic Computing Center
Lines: 95

I have a problem using single and double tilde in formats.
I have a file with each line consisting of 20 fields separated by
a tab. Most of the fields are blank, some are short and the rest
is very long (up to 1000 chars or more).
For printing this out, I wanted to use perl (what other program
does not choke on such long lines?).  A little skeleton of the
program (which does also some other things) follows:

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
format =
^<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
 $Xword
^<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<~
 $Xvd
    ^<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<~~
     $Xvd
^<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<~
 $Xhn
    ^<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<~~
     $Xhn
^<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<~
 $Xdh
    ^<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<~~
     $Xdh
------------------------------------
.

while (<>) {
    reset 'X';
    chop;
    split(/\t/);
    $Xword = @_[1];
    if (@_[2] =~ /./) { $Xvd = "VD: " . @_[2]; }
    if (@_[3] =~ /./) { $Xhn = "HN: " . @_[3]; }
    if (@_[4] =~ /./) { $Xdh = "DH: " . @_[4]; }
    write;
}
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

The format makes an "undented" (vs. "indented") paragraph of each
field (except the first).  If the field is blank, then is not
printed.  The output I expected would look like:


-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
a cow
VD: bla bla bla bla
DH: blablalbalb blabla
    bla blab lab la lba
    bla bla bla bla bla
------------------------
a horse
VD: blabla blabla bla
    blab lab la blalba
    blablabla balbla bla
    bla bla bal balba
    bla bla blba blabla
    blab lblablabal
-------------------------
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-


But it rather looks like:

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
a cow
VD: bla bla bla bla
DH: blablalbalb blabla
    bla blab lab la lba
bla bla bla bla bla
------------------------
a horse
VD: blabla blabla bla
    blab lab la blalba
blablabla balbla bla
    bla bla bal balba
bla bla blba blabla
    blab lblablabal
-------------------------
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

Instead of just repeating the line with two tildes, it
repeats the pair of lines.
What do I do wrong?  Or isn't the format intended to be used
for this purpose?

Btw, in perl.4.0, beta release in lib/look.pl, we find:
    ;#Usage: &look(*FILEHANDLE,$key,$dict,$fold)
and a little bit further:
    local(*FH,$key,$fold,$dict) = @_;
... If in doubt, look at the code...

Polleke   (Paul Bijnens)
Linguistics dept., K. University Leuven, Belgium
FFAAC09@cc1.kuleuven.ac.be