NAME

Text::TabFile - Module for parsing tab delimited files

SYNOPSIS

Text::TabFile provides a programattical interface to data stored in text files delimited with tabs. It is dependant upon the first row of the tab file containing header information for each corresponding "column" in the file.

After instancing, for each call to Read the next row's data is returned as a hash reference. The individual elements are keyed by their corresonding column headings.

USAGE

A short example of usage is detailed below. It opens a file called 'infile.tab', reads through every row and prints out the data from "COLUMN1" in that row. It then closes the file.

  my $tabfile = new Text::TabFile;
  $tabfile->open('infile.tab');

  my @header = $tabfile->fields;

  while ( my $row = $tabfile->read ) {
    print $row->{COLUMN1}, "\n";
  }

  $tabfile->Close;

A shortcut for open() is to specifiy the file or a globbed filehanle as the first parameter when the module is instanced:

  my $tabfile = new Text::TabFile ('infile.tab');

  my $tabfile = new Text::TabFile (\*STDIN);

The close() method is atuomatically called when the object passes out of scope. However, you should not depend on this. Use close() when approrpiate.

Other informational methods are also available. They are listed blow:

METHODS

close()

Closes the file or connection, and cleans up various bits.

fields()

Returns an array (or arrayref, depending on the requested context) with the column header fields in the order specified by the source file.

filename()

If Open was given a filename, this function will return that value.

linenumber()

This returns the line number of the last line read. If no calls to Read have been made, will be 0. After the first call to Read, this will return 1, etc.

new([filename|filepointer],[enumerate])

Creates a new Text::TabFile object. Takes optional parameter that is either a filename or a globbed filehandle. Files specified by filename must already exist.

Can optionally take a second argument. If this argument evaluates to true, TabFile.pm will append a _NUM to the end of all fields with duplicate names. That is, if your header row contains 2 columns named "NAME", one will be changed to NAME_1, the other to NAME_2.

open([filename|filepointer], [enumerate])

Opens the given filename or globbed filehandle and reads the header line. Returns 0 if the operation failed. Returns the file object if succeeds.

Can optionally take a second argument. If this argument evaluates to true, TabFile.pm will append a _NUM to the end of all fields with duplicate names. That is, if your header row contains 2 columns named "NAME", one will be changed to NAME_1, the other to NAME_2.

read()

Returns a hashref with the next record of data. The hash keys are determined by the header line.

__DATA__ and __LINE__ are also returned as keys.

__DATA__ is an arrayref with the record values in order.

__LINE__ is a string with the original tab-separated record.

This method returns undef if there is no more data to be read.

setmode(encoding)

Set the given encoding scheme on the tabfile to allow for reading files encoded in standards other than ASCII.

EXPORTABLE METHODS

For convienience, the following methods are exportable. These are handy for quickly writing output tab files.

tj(@STUFF)

Tab Join. Returns the given array as a string joined with tabs.

tl(@STUFF)

Tab Line. Returns the given array as a string joined with tabs (with newline appended).

SEE ALSO

  Text::Delimited

BUGS AND SOURCE

        Bug tracking for this module: https://rt.cpan.org/Dist/Display.html?Name=Text-TabFile

        Source hosting: http://www.github.com/bennie/perl-Text-TabFile

VERSION

        Text::Tabfile v1.14 (2014/03/08)

COPYRIGHT

        (c) 2004-2014, Phillip Pollard <bennie@cpan.org>

LICENSE

This source code is released under the "Perl Artistic License 2.0," the text of which is included in the LICENSE file of this distribution. It may also be reviewed here: http://opensource.org/licenses/artistic-license-2.0

AUTHORSHIP

  I'd like to thank PetBlvd for sponsoring continued work on this module.
  http://www.petblvd.com/

  Additional contributions by Kristina Davis <krd@menagerie.tf>
  Based upon the original module by Andrew Barnett <abarnett@hmsonline.com>

  Originally derived from Util::TabFile 1.9 2003/11/05
  With permission granted from Health Market Science, Inc.