Parse record

#!/usr/bin/perl

# input: string, hash { field1 => length1, field2 => length2, ... }

# output: hash { field1 => value1, field2 => value2, etc }

sub extract2 {

print "extract2 ...\n";

my $str = shift;

my $fieldlist = shift;

# construc matching pattern

my $patstr = "";

while( my ( $fieldname, $fieldlength ) = each %$fieldlist ) {

$patstr .= "(.{$fieldlength})";

} # end while

# match it

if ($str =~ m/$patstr/) {

my @values = $str =~ /$patstr/;

# create the output

my $i = 0;

while( my ( $fieldname, $fieldlength ) = each %$fieldlist ) {

$record{$fieldname} = $values[$i++];

}

return \%record;

} else {

my %record = ();

return \%record;

}

}

$str = "AAABBBBCCCCCDDD";

%header = (

field1 => 3,

field2 => 4,

field3 => 5,

field4 => 4

);

$output = extract2($str, \%header);

print "outside ...\n";

for my $key (keys %$output) {

my $val = $output->{$key};

print "$key , $val \n";

}

exit 0;