Quick Question about assignments

[Mr. P-1]

Originally Posted by chalsall

You are correct. Although my script was only 12 lines vs. your 22, mine contained 299 characters while yours contained 302 (with indentation removed from both scripts). Basically, identical.

Mine contained a whole statement:

                ORS="\r\n"

taken from dublow's original, which as far as I can see is an adaptation to a Windows environment. It's not necessary in *nix. You also used a shorter variable name: "$To" versus "bita".

I could have merged the two tests. Instead of

$5 in bita      {
                if (bita[$5] > $8) bita[$5] = $8
                if (bitb[$5] < $11) bitb[$5] = $11
                next
                }

$5 ~ /[0-9]+/   {
                bita[$5] = $8
                bitb[$5] = $11
                }

I could have written

$5 ~ /[0-9]+/   {
                if (! ($5 in bita) || bita[$5] > $8) bita[$5] = $8
                if (! ($5 in bitb) || bitb[$5] < $11) bitb[$5] = $11
                }

[LaurV]

Originally Posted by Mr. P-1

The ideal computer language has just one statement:

"Do what I want".

That is implemented already. The computers do what you told them to do, and not what you intended to tell them to do. (or what you believe that you told them to do).

[Dubslow]

Indeed, it is for Winblows. I was wondering about the regex, but what it output worked just fine, seeing as the only numbers to be parsed are the ones we need.

[Christenson]

Perhaps it is time I learned awk...but what I would say of perl is:
1) It is a GENERAL tool. I'd argue that unless the user has a lot of work to do that the specific tool is really good at, the general tool is better. This is not the case here; this is a one-off that will soon be forgotten when the task is over.
2) Perl is designed as a conscious attempt to minimise the amount of programming effort for one-off problems.
3) If sed can do it, perl has a "sed" mode.

Now, let's fight!!!
Anyone know what I should look at on the net besides "man awk"?

[Dubslow]

http://www.grymoire.com/Unix/Awk.html is what I used to crap together my not-a-program.

[Mr. P-1]

Originally Posted by Christenson

Perhaps it is time I learned awk...but what I would say of perl is:
1) It is a GENERAL tool. I'd argue that unless the user has a lot of work to do that the specific tool is really good at, the general tool is better. This is not the case here; this is a one-off that will soon be forgotten when the task is over.

If you have both tools, and are equally adept at using both, then you would naturally choose to tool best suited for the job at hand, regardless of whether you have a lot of similar work or not.

If you only have the general tool, it might be worth acquiring the specific tool if you did have a lot of work that it's really good at. If you only have the specific tool, it might be worth acquiring the general tool if you had even a little work the specific tool was not good at.

2) Perl is designed as a conscious attempt to minimise the amount of programming effort for one-off problems.

Indeed. Larry Wall said there was a subset of perl that looks like AWK.

3) If sed can do it, perl has a "sed" mode.

I use sed for simple substitutions. I know it can do more than that, but I've never bothered to learn.

Anyone know what I should look at on the net besides "man awk"?

dunno. I just use GAWK info.