Filter Repeated Data

[virtualweb]

Hi..

Im saving States and Cityies from people answering a poll in a flat file database delimited by pipes. Flat file named States_Cities.t xt

The information is saved in this format:

FLORIDA|MIAMI
FLORIDA|JACKSON VILLE
FLORIDA|TAMPA
TEXAS|HOUSTON
TEXAS|DALLAS
TEXAS|AMARILLO
TEXAS|AUSTIN
TEXAS|MCALLEN
TEXAS|WACO
ILLINOIS|CHICAG O

I need a snippet of code which will read this file and then tell me how many different states I got, which are them, and which cities belong to each.

Thanx
Regards from virtualweb

[numberwhun]

Well, what have you tried thus far? We can certainly help you troubleshoot your existing code, but a code writing service this is not, sorry. Post what you have tried and we can help you.

Regards,

Jeff

[miller]

Welcome to TSDN,

What you're attempting to do is not hard. The simplest method would be to simply load your file data into a hash of arrays where the keys are the state names. Actually, since you're looking for uniqueness, a hash of hashes would be better, where the final value would be a count.

To learn about complex data structures, look here.

perldsc Perl Data Structures Complex

To learn a new technique for checking uniqueness, look here:

perlfaq4 How do I get the unique keys from two hashes

- Miller