Re: Parsing challenge...

this script failed if any of the cell is blank/no-value,
e.g:

CODE#1^DESCRIPTION^CODE#2^NOTES
NN-110^^^some notes
NN-111^1st line data
2nd line data
3rd line data^BRT345^another notes
NN-112^description of NN-112^BBC23^multiline
notes blah
blah
blah
NN-113^info info^MNO12^some notes here


"Ara.T.Howard" <[e-mail]> wrote in message
news:[e-mail]...
> On Tue, 7 Oct 2003, Artco News wrote:
>
> > I thought I ask the scripting guru about the following.
> >
> > I have a file containing records of data with the following format(first
> > column is the label):
> >
> > CODE#1^DESCRIPTION^CODE#2^NOTES
> > NN-110^an info of NN-001^BRY234^some notes
> > NN-111^1st line data
> > 2nd line data
> > 3rd line data^BRT345^another notes
> > NN-112^description of NN-112^BBC23^multiline
> > notes blah
> > blah
> > blah
> > NN-113^info info^MNO12^some notes here
> >
> > How do I parse so I can insert them in the database, e.g. MySQL/Access?
> >
> > Perhaps there are an advanced scripting language can do this easily.
>
> ruby is one of the more advanced  :-)
>
> ~/eg/ruby > cat ./parse.rb
>
>   #!/usr/bin/env ruby
>
>   txt = <<-txt
>     CODE#1^DESCRIPTION^CODE#2^NOTES
>     NN-110^an info of NN-001^BRY234^some notes
>     NN-111^1st line data
>     2nd line data
>     3rd line data^BRT345^another notes
>     NN-112^description of NN-112^BBC23^multiline
>     notes blah
>     blah
>     blah
>     NN-113^info info^MNO12^some notes here
>   txt
>
>
>   pat = %r{([^^]+)\^([^^]+)\^([^^]+)\^([^^]+)\n}mox
>   tuples = txt.scan pat
>
>   tuples.map{|tuple| p tuple}
>
>
> ~/eg/ruby > ./parse.rb
>
>   ["  CODE#1", "DESCRIPTION", "CODE#2", "NOTES"]
>   ["  NN-110", "an info of NN-001", "BRY234", "some notes"]
>   ["  NN-111", "1st line data\n  2nd line data\n  3rd line data",
"BRT345", "another notes"]
>   ["  NN-112", "description of NN-112", "BBC23", "multiline\n  notes
blah\n  blah\n  blah"]
>   ["  NN-113", "info info", "MNO12", "some notes here"]
>
> -a
>   ====================================
>   | Ara Howard
>   | NOAA Forecast Systems Laboratory
>   | Information and Technology Services
>   | Data Systems Group
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>   | Boulder, CO 80305-3328
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>   | Fax:    [phone]
>   | The difference between art and science is that science is what we
understand
>   | well enough to explain to a computer.  Art is everything else.
>   |   -- Donald Knuth, "Discover"
>   | ~ > /bin/sh -c 'for lang in ruby perl; do $lang -e "print
\"\x3a\x2d\x29\x0a\""; done'
>   ====================================