Reformat Data (Perl)

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

I am new to Perl. I need to reformat a data file as the last part of a script I am working on. I am stuck on this.

Here is the current format:

CUSTOMER Filename 09/04/07-08:49
CUSTOMER Filename 09/04/07-08:52
CUSTOMER Filename 09/04/07-08:52
CUSTOMER2 Filename 09/04/07-08:49
CUSTOMER2 Filename 09/04/07-08:52
CUSTOMER2 Filename 09/04/07-08:52

I need it to look like this:

CUSTOMER
Filename 09/04/07-08:49
Filename 09/04/07-08:52
Filename 09/04/07-08:52

CUSTOMER2
Filename 09/04/07-08:49
Filename 09/04/07-08:52
Filename 09/04/07-08:52

Any ideas? I've thought about looping thru the list and storing each list item as a variable and then printing the variables, but I haven't worked out how exactly to do it.

2

standard key holding mechanism:

#!/usr/local/bin/perl

$fin = "c";

unless ( open FIN, $fin ){
  print "cannot read file $fin \n";
  exit(9);
  }

@a_lines = <FIN>; chomp @a_lines; close FIN;

$prev_customer = "ZZZZ";

foreach $line ( @a_lines ){

  ( $customer, @a_junk ) = split( / /, $line );

  if ( $prev_customer ne $customer ){
    if ( $prev_customer ne "ZZZZ" ){
      print "\n";
      }

    $prev_customer = $customer;

    print "$customer\n";
    }

  print join ' ', @a_junk;
  print "\n";

  }
3

same solution in ksh:

#!/bin/ksh



prev_customer=ZZZZ

cat c |
while read customer junk ; do

  if [ $prev_customer != $customer ]; then
    if [ $prev_customer != "ZZZZ" ]; then
      print
    fi

    prev_customer=$customer

    print $customer
  fi

  print $junk

done

was stuck in perl mode, i guess...

4

quirkasaurus, that works great.

I've never used a key holding mechanism so thanks. I am sure I will find a lot of uses for it going forward. I really appreciate your help.