[aclug-L] Perl help!!

[Mohammad Islam <sohel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello all,

First Merry christmas and Happy new year to you all!! :))

Ok now down to business...

I have following blashphemous question:

Anybody here has used perl on win32(Activeperl version 5.005_02)..say on
winNT?(Geezzz)

I am having some problem with perl's "format" on my winNT system.

Here is a description of my problem:

I have the following file on my c:\ drive named data.txt. It has the
following format:

Linus:Trovalds:ManOfTheYear:1999
Eric:Raymond:36milliondollarman:1999

Now i have the following perl code to open the file, parse the data and
show em to the screen in a defined format:

##Begin code

open(DATA, "c:\\data.txt");

while(<DATA>)
{

        ($first, $last, $status, $year) = split(/:/);
        write;
}
format STDOUT =
@<<<<<<<<<< @<<<<<<<<<< @<<<<<<< @<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
$first, $last, $status, $year
.

##End code

But when i run it from the command prompt it gives the following error: 

Format not terminated at formattest.pl line 14, at end of line
Format not terminated at formattest.pl line 14, at end of line

Hmmm..same script run flawlessly on my linux machine. I do not have a
clue here. I have terminated format at the end (Notice the .)

Anyone can shed some light on this?? Do i neeed to do something special
to terminate format  for a win32 system?

Your insights would be most appreciated.

Thanks.

Mohammed