Introduction
This chapter demonstrates Perl Format which is used to generate the exacted reports similar to the output screen or in a file and following are the concepts covered in this chapter.
- Perl Formats
Description
Perl has a mechanism using which user can generate reports. using this feature user can make reports exactly the way we want while printing on the Output screen or in a file. a simple format can be written using printf or sprint functions available in Perl is as shown in below snippet.
[code]
printf "%05d\n", 30;
[/code]
Which includes leading zeros in front of number 30 making a total count of digits to 5 which can be used for sprintf as shown below.
[code]
sprintf "%05d\n", 30; # This will print the same as printf.
[/code]
The table below demonstrates the particular method write to print the data on output screen or into the file.
The code below demonstrates the Perl Formats as shown below.
[perl]
format EMPLOYEE =
===================================
@<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< @<<
$name $age
@#####.##
$salary
===================================
.
select(STDOUT);
$~ = EMPLOYEE;
@n = ("wilson", "Tony", "kate");
@a = (20,30, 40);
@s = (2000.00, 2500.00, 4000.000);
$i = 0;
foreach (@n){
$name = $_;
$age = $a[$i];
$salary = $s[$i++];
write;
}
[/perl]
Result
By running the above code in a Perl command line user can get the following output as shown in below image.
Header Report
If user interested in adding a header to the report. which header will be printed on top of each page. Which is a very easy process. apart from defining a template, you would have to define a header and assign it to $^ or $FORMAT_TOP_NAME variable. The code below demonstrates the Header report as shown below.
[perl]
format EMPLOYEE =
===================================
@<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< @<<
$name $age
@#####.##
$salary
===================================
.
format EMPLOYEE_TOP =
===================================
Name Age
===================================
.
select(STDOUT);
$~ = EMPLOYEE;
$^ = EMPLOYEE_TOP;
@n = ("wilson", "Tony", "kate");
@a = (20,30, 40);
@s = (2000.00, 2500.00, 4000.000);
$i = 0;
foreach (@n){
$name = $_;
$age = $a[$i];
$salary = $s[$i++];
write;
}
[/perl]
Result
By running the above code in a Perl command line user can get the following output as shown in below image.
| Symbol | Description |
|---|---|
| @ | Which is used to represent the start of the field holder. |
| < | Which is the left alignment of the text. |
| > | Which is the right alignment of the text. |
| | | center alignment. |
| # | Nueric if multiple # provided. |
| . | Decimal Point. |
| ^ | Start of field holder. |
| ~ | Line should be empty if variable is empty. |
| @* | Multiple lines. |
Key Points
- User can also headers to the page.
- fieldline contain any text or file folders.
- FormatName represent the name of the format.