Merging two text files based on some kind of text anchors

From: triangle (david.knecht_at_anyweb.ch)
Date: 01/30/04 

Date: 30 Jan 2004 11:57:41 -0800

Dear all,

I would like to merge two text files based on some criteria driven by
regular expressions.

Basically, this is what I'd like to achieve:

Contents of file 1:

abc
def
ghi

Contents of file 2 (defines the anchors and their contents):

[anchor1]This is some text for anchor 1.
[anchor2]This is some text for anchor 2.

The file which is the result of the merger process should look like
this:

abc This is some text for anchor 1.
def
ghi This is some text for anchor 2.

I'd like to define the anchors as regular expressions (identifying a
single line in file 1 or a range of multiple lines). Here, [anchor1]
is a regular expression which identifies the text "abc" in file 1.

Of course, "abc" might occur several times in file 1. To clearly
identify one particular instance of "abc" multiple identification
criteria might be required.

The basic idea is to merge comments in a fully automated manner to
some kind of source code, configuration file and the like.

I think of writing a Perl script for this but before doing that, I'd
like to check if there are other solutions/tools around. The plattform
is Linux.

If scripting it in Perl, are there any special Perl modules around for
this task?

Thanks, David

Relevant Pages

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    (rec.arts.tv)
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    (rec.arts.tv)
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  • Re: PETER JENNINGS DEAD
    ... ABC just finished airing a very loving tribute to him, ... Charlie Gibson anchored, and Ted Koppel, Barbara Walters, and Diane Sawyer ... quite a good anchor in his own right, thought I don't know if ABC would want ...
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