Hi All,

Can you please tell me how to search in a txt file for each array element.

If my array contains 3 elements say io, new folder,po,new folder(2).
i want to check these elements in a text file one by one if it exists then exit the loop if it does not exist then append the elements to the text file.

i tried the below code but i am certain only the first half is correct and requires some help for the second half

#-----------------------------------------------------------
chdir('D:\pp') or die "$!";
opendir(DIR,'.') or die "$!";

@folders = grep (-d && !/^\.+$/, readdir(DIR));
close(DIR);

print "before sorting\n";
print "$_\n" for @folders;

@sortf = sort(@folders);

print "after sorting\n";
print "$_\n" for @sortf;

$cnt=@folders;
print $cnt;

open(FILE,"+>>DB.txt") or die "$!";

while ( <FILE> )
{
 $myfile = $myfile . $_;

}


foreach my $dirs (@sortf) {
 @times= grep(/$dirs/,$myfile);

#i am not sure how to append the non existing entries to the file with the output of grep

}

close(FILE);
#-------------------------------------------------------

Can any one let me know the right way of doing this.

Thanks in advance.

To open a text file and check for every element in an array within the file:

 - open the file
 - read it into an array
 - close the file
 - for each element of the file_array, grep for each element of the targets_array

You'll need to understand map and grep to get this:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
# look for elements of array @targets in file $file
use strict;

my @targets=qw|target1 target2 target3|;
my $file = 'myfile';

open (INPUT, $file);
my @file_lines = <INPUT>;
close INPUT;

my @found_lines = map { my $tg=$_;
                        grep {/$tg/x} @targets } @file_lines ;

print join ", ",@found_lines;
print "\n";

HTH
Charlie

--
Don't Stand on your head - you'll get footprints in your hair
                                           http://charlieharvey.org.uk
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