Updated file strings words together - arrays

Question

My script works, except when I append the file: it bunches my words into one string like so:
Joe Smo45MaleSingle
Originally, in the text file, they are in a column. I want the appended file to stay in a column.
#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use File::Slurp;
my #array1 = ("Full Name:", "Age:", "Gender:", "Marital Status:");
my #array2 = read_file("empdata.txt", chomp => 1);
print "$array1[0] $array2[0]\n";
print "$array1[1] $array2[1]\n";
print "$array1[2] $array2[2]\n";
print "$array1[3] $array2[3]\n";
print "Do you want to change the age? (y or n) :";
chomp(my $answer = <STDIN>);
if ($answer eq "y") {
print "What is the new age? :";
chomp(my $age = <STDIN>);
$array2[1] = $age;
write_file("empdata.txt",#array2);
print "Do you want to change marital status? (y or n) :";
chomp(my $answer = <STDIN>);
if ($answer eq "y") {
print "What is the new marital status? :";
chomp(my $status = <STDIN>);
$array2[3] = $status;
write_file("empdata.txt",#array2);
}
} else {
print "Do you want to change marital status? (y or n) :";
chomp(my $answer = <STDIN>);
if ($answer eq "y") {
print "What is the new marital status? :";
chomp(my $status = <STDIN>);
$array2[3] = $status;
write_file("empdata.txt",#array2);
}
}
close || die "could not close file";

Answer 1

I'm guessing, because you haven't shown us your input data. But I think you're saying that your input file looks like this:
Joe Smo
45
Male
Single
And, after running your program, you end up with this:
Joe Smo45MaleSingle
When you read the file, you use the chomp => 1 option to read_file(). That removes newlines from the end of the lines in the file. But write_file() doesn't have an unchomp option to replace the newlines.
The quickest, dirtiest, fix is to stop removing the newlines. You'll want to remove the chomp => 1 option from read_file() and also stop calling chomp() on the new $status values as you read them in. You can also remove the "\n" from the lines where you are printing the original records (as they will have a newline attached).
However, I'd caution you against using File::Slurp. It has some problems with UTF8 data that are likely to burn you in the future. I'd recommend Path::Tiny (which has slurp() and spew() methods) in its place.
But, really, it looks like you're writing a database. So why not use a database?