loop through elements of array to find character perl - arrays

Question

I have a perl array where I only want to loop through elements 2-8.
The elements are only meant to contain numbers, so if any of those elements contain a letter, I want to set an error flag = 1, as well as some other variables as seen.
The reason I have 2 error flag variables is due to scope rules within the loop.
fields is an array, I created by splitting another irrelevant array by the " " key.
So, when I try to print error_line2, error_fname2 from outside the loop, I get this:
Use of uninitialized value $error_flag2 in numeric eq (==)
I don't know why, because I've initialized the value within the loop and created the variable outside the loop.
Not sure if I'm even looping to find characters correctly, so then it's not setting the error_flag2 = 1.
Example line:
bob hankerman 2039 3232 23 232 645 64x3 324
since element 7 has the letter 'x' , I want the flag to be set to 1.
#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use Scalar::Util qw(looks_like_number);
my $players_file = $ARGV[0];
my #players_array;
open (my $file, "<", "$players_file")
or die "Failed to open file: $!\n";
while(<$file>) {
chomp;
push #players_array, $_;
}
close $file;
#print join "\n", #players_array;
my $num_of_players = #players_array;
my $error_flag;
my $error_line;
my $error_fname;
my $error_lname;
my $error_flag2=1;
my $error_line2;
my $error_fname2;
my $error_lname2;
my $i;
foreach my $player(#players_array){
my #fields = split " ", $player;
my $size2 = #fields;
for($i=2; $i<9; $i++){
print "$fields[$i] \n";
if (grep $_ =~ /^[a-zA-Z]+$/){
my $errorflag2 = 1;
$error_flag2 = $errorflag2;
my $errorline2 = $player +1;
$error_line2 = $errorline2;
my $errorfname2 = $fields[0];
$error_fname2 = $errorfname2;
}
}
if ($size2 == "9" ) {
my $firstname = $fields[0];
my $lastname = $fields[1];
my $batting_average = ($fields[4]+$fields[5]+$fields[6]+$fields[7]) / $fields[3];
my $slugging = ($fields[4]+($fields[5]*2)+($fields[6]*3)+($fields[7]*4)) / $fields[3];
my $on_base_percent = ($fields[4]+$fields[5]+$fields[6]+$fields[7] +$fields[8]) / $fields[2];
print "$firstname ";
print "$lastname ";
print "$batting_average ";
print "$slugging ";
print "$on_base_percent\n ";
}
else {
my $errorflag = 1;
$error_flag = $errorflag;
my $errorline = $player +1;
$error_line = $errorline;
my $errorfname = $fields[0];
$error_fname = $errorfname;
my $errorlname = $fields[1];
$error_lname = $errorlname;
}
}
if ($error_flag == "1"){
print "\n Line $error_line : ";
print "$error_fname, ";
print "$error_lname :";
print "Line contains not enough data.\n";
}
if ($error_flag2 == "1"){
print "\n Line $error_line2 : ";
print "$error_fname2, ";
print "Line contains bad data.\n";
}

Answer 1

OK, so the problem you've got here is that you're thinking of grep in Unix terms - a text based thing. It doesn't work like that in perl - it operates on a list.
Fortunately, this is pretty easy to handle in your case, because you can split your line into words.
Without your source data, this is hopefully a proof of concept:
#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use Data::Dumper;
while ( <DATA> ) {
#split the current line on whitespace into an array.
#first two elements get assigned to firstname lastname, and then the rest
#goes into #values
my ( $firstname, $lastname, #values ) = split; #works on $_ implicitly.
#check every element in #values, and test the regex 'non-digit' against it.
my #errors = grep { /\D/ } #values;
#output any matches e.g. things that contained 'non-digits' anywhere.
print Dumper \#errors;
#an array in a scalar context evaluates as the number of elements.
#we need to use "scalar" here because print accepts list arguments.
print "There were ", scalar #errors, " errors\n";
}
__DATA__
bob hankerman 2039 3232 23 232 645 64x3 324
Or reducing down the logic:
#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
while ( <DATA> ) {
#note - we don't need to explicity specify 'scalar' here,
#because assigning it to a scalar does that automatically.
#(split) splits the current line, and [2..8] skips the first two.
my $count_of_errors = grep { /\D/ } (split)[2..8];
print $count_of_errors;
}
__DATA__
bob hankerman 2039 3232 23 232 645 64x3 324

Answer 2

First : You don't need to use "GREP", Simply you can match the string with "=~" in perl and you can print matched value with $&.
Second : You should use $_ if and only if there is not other variable used in the loop. There is already $i used in the loop, you can write the loop as :
for my $i (2..9) {
print "$i\n";
}
or
foreach(2..9) {
print "$_\n";
}