[ILUG] Parsing large files with grep

[Niall O Broin]

On 25 Nov 2007, at 15:12, Rory Browne wrote:

>> What baffles me is that, once you've dragged in perl, that you
>> wouldn't use it to solve the whole problem in one pass..
>
>
>
> I didn´t want to give perl too much to do - I wanted to reduce its  
> workload
> by prefiltering it through grep. It´s like trying to reach a  
> certain part of
> Dublin that can only be reached on foot - you don´t walk from  
> Galway - you
> drive to dublin, and then walk the rest of the way.

I read this once. I read it twice. I drank some whiskey. I read it  
thrice. It still doesn't make any sense. Give perl too much to do?  
Filtering text and working on it is exactly what perl was designed to  
do - passing something through grep and then to perl makes the baby  
Jeebus weep buckets.

And as for the analogy - it dies roaring because there's nothing grep  
can do that perl can't.


Niall