Finding the first instance only of a number in a file

[pcutler]

Hi,

I have a file that is split into four reports. I'm using PERL to pull out lines that start with numbers like 301, 533 ect from each report.

Everything was working great, until I encountered a line that has 301 in it, but not at the begining.

How do I tell PERL to look for lines that BEGIN with 301, 533 etc and ignore instances where those numbers occur after the start of the line.

Thanks in advance for your help.

PC

 

[raider2001]

The '^' character denotes the beginning of a line. Here is an example:

$match = 301;
if ($line =~ /^$match/) {
    print "found it \n";
}

 

[hmerrill]

my $abs_file = "/path/to/file";
open(IN, &quot;<$abs_file&quot || die &quot;Can't open $abs_file!&quot;
while(<IN>) {
if (/^\d\d\d/) {
### This is a good line - it starts with 3 digits
}
}

HTH. Hardy Merrill