Print only the first word in line - perl

Question

I need some help with following perl code.
#!perl -w
use strict;
use warnings;
open my $file, '<', 'ubb' or die $1;
my $spool = 0;
my #matchingLines;
while (<$file>) {
if (/GROUPS/i) {
$spool = 1;
next;
}
elsif (/SERVERS/i) {
$spool = 0;
print map { "$_" } #matchingLines;
#matchingLines = ();
}
if ($spool) {
push (#matchingLines, $_);
}
}
close ($file);
Output from that is shown below.
ADM LMID=GW_S4_1_PM,GW_S4_2_BM
GRPNO=1
ADM_TMS LMID=GW_S4_1_PM,GW_S4_2_BM
GRPNO=2
TMSNAME=TMS
ADM_1 LMID=GW_S4_1_PM
GRPNO=11
ADM_2 LMID=GW_S4_2_BM
GRPNO=12
DMWSG_Gateway_1 LMID=GW_S4_1_PM
GRPNO=101
ENVFILE="../GW_S4.Gateway.envfile"
DMWSG_Gateway_2 LMID=GW_S4_2_BM
GRPNO=201
ENVFILE="../GW_S4.Gateway.envfile"
DMWSG_1 LMID=GW_S4_1_PM
GRPNO=106
DMWSG_2 LMID=GW_S4_2_BM
GRPNO=206
But I only would like to get the first word of each line (e.g. ADM, ADM_TMS, ADM_1).
Note that the file has a lot of other lines above and below what's printed here. I only want to do this for lines that is in between GROUPS and SERVERS.

Answer 1

I would suggest 2 changes in your code
Note: Tested these with your sample data (plus other stuff) in your question.
I: Extract first word before push
Change this
push (#matchingLines, $_);
to
push (#matchingLines, /^(\S+)/);
This would push the first word of each line into the array, instead of the entire line.
Note that /^(\S+)/ is shorthand for $_ =~ /^(\S+)/. If you're using an explicit loop variable like in 7stud's answer, you can't use this shorthand, use the explicit syntax instead, say $line =~ /^(\S+)/ or whatever your loop variable is.
Of course, you can also use split function as suggested in 7stud's answer.
II: Change how you print
Change this
print map { "$_" } #matchingLines;
into
local $" = "\n";
print "#matchingLines \n";
$" specifies the delimiter used for list elements when the array is printed with print or say inside double quotes.
Alternatively, as per TLP's suggestion,
$\ = $/;
print for #lines;
or
print join("\n", #lines), "\n"
Note that $/ is the input record separator (newline by default), $\ is the output record separator (undefined by default). $\ is appended after each print command.
For more information on $/, $\, and $":
See perldoc perlvar (just use CTRL+F to find them in that page)
Or you can simply use perldoc -v '$/' etc on your console to get those information.
Note on readability
I don't think implicit regex matching i.e. /pattern/ is bad per se.
But matching against a variable, i.e. $variable =~ /pattern/ is more readable (as in you can immediately see there's a regex matching going on) and more beginner-friendly, at the cost of conciseness.

Answer 2

use strict;
use warnings;
use 5.014; #say()
my $fname = 'data.txt';
open my $INFILE, '<', $fname
or die "Couldn't open $fname: $!"; #-->Not $1"
my $recording_on = 0;
my #matching_lines;
for my $line (<$INFILE>) {
if ($line =~ /groups/i) {
$recording_on = 1;
next;
}
elsif ($line =~ /servers/i) {
say for #matching_lines; #say() is the same as print(), but it adds a newline at the end
#matching_lines = ();
$recording_on = 0;
}
if ($recording_on) {
my ($first_word, $trash) = split " ", $line, 2;
push #matching_lines, $first_word;
}
}
close $INFILE;

Answer 3

You can use the flip-flop operator (range) to select a part of your input. The idea of this operator is that it returns false until its LHS (left hand side) returns true, and after that it returns true until its RHS returns false, after which it is reset. It is somewhat like preserving a state.
Note that the edge lines are also included in the match, so we need to remove those. After that, use doubleDown's idea and push /^(\S+)/ onto an array. The nice thing about using this with push is that the capture regex returns an empty list if it fails, and this gives us a warning-free failure when the regex does not match.
use strict;
use warnings;
my #matches;
while (<>) {
if (/GROUPS/i .. /SERVERS/i) { # flip-flop remembers the matches
next if (/GROUPS/i or /SERVERS/i);
push #matches, /^(\S+)/;
}
}
# #matches should now contain the first words of those lines