How can I extract a string between matching braces in Perl?

Question

My input file is as below :

HEADER 
{ABC|*|DEF {GHI 0 1 0} {{Points {}}}}

{ABC|*|DEF {GHI 0 2 0} {{Points {}}}}

{ABC|*|XYZ:abc:def {GHI 0 22 0} {{Points {{         


        

Answer 1

I second ysth's suggestion to use the Text::Balanced module. A few lines will get you on your way.

use strict;
use warnings;
use Text::Balanced qw/extract_multiple extract_bracketed/;

my $file;
open my $fileHandle, '<', 'file.txt';

{ 
  local $/ = undef; # or use File::Slurp
  $file = <$fileHandle>;
}

close $fileHandle;

my @array = extract_multiple(
                               $file,
                               [ sub{extract_bracketed($_[0], '{}')},],
                               undef,
                               1
                            );

print $_,"\n" foreach @array;

---

OUTPUT

{ABC|*|DEF {GHI 0 1 0} {{Points {}}}}
{ABC|*|DEF {GHI 0 2 0} {{Points {}}}}
{ABC|*|XYZ:abc:def {GHI 0 22 0} {{Points {{F1 1.1} {F2 1.2} {F3 1.3} {F4 1.4}}}}}
{ABC|*|XYZ:ghi:jkl {JKL 0 372 0} {{Points {}}}}
{ABC|*|XYZ:mno:pqr {GHI 0 34 0} {{Points {}}}}
{
    ABC|*|XYZ:abc:pqr {GHI 0 68 0}
        {{Points {{F1 11.11} {F2 12.10} {F3 14.11} {F4 16.23}}}}
        }