Print a file in multiple columns based on delimiter

Question

This seems like a simple task, but using duckduckgo I wasn\'t able to find a way to properly do what I\'m trying to.

The main question is: How do I split the output of a

Answer 1

The question is tagged as Perl so here is a possible Perl answer:

#!/usr/bin/env perl
use strict;
use warnings;

my $is_col1 = 1;
my $in_block = 0;
my @col1;

while () {
    chomp;
    if (/^\s*-+\s*$/ ... /^\s*-+\s*$/) {
        $in_block = 1;
        if ($is_col1) {
            push @col1, $_;
        }
        else {
            printf "%-40s%-40s\n", shift @col1 // '', $_;
        }

    }
    else {
        if ($in_block) {
            $in_block = ! $in_block;
            $is_col1 = ! $is_col1;
            print "\n" if $is_col1; # line separating blocks
        }
    }
}

print join("\n", @col1), "\n\n" if @col1;

__DATA__
-----------------------------------
Some data
that varies in line length
-----------------------------------

-----------------------------------
More data that is seperated
by a new line and dashes
with a longer column2
-----------------------------------


-----------------------------------
The odd last column
-----------------------------------

Output:

-----------------------------------     -----------------------------------
Some data                               More data that is seperated
that varies in line length              by a new line and dashes
-----------------------------------     with a longer column2
                                        -----------------------------------

-----------------------------------
The odd last column
-----------------------------------