Perl Search and Replace in one regular expression - regex

I need in something like this: 's/oldstr/newstr/g;pattern', i.e. I want to replace oldstr and find some pattern in the string after replace. All in one regular expression.

If you want to replace first and look for a pattern in the resulting string, you can just put both expressions after one another. The replace with the /r flag will return the altered string, and the m operator will match that string against the pattern.
use Test::Simple 'no_plan'; # this is just for the ok() function
my $str = 'foobar';
ok($str =~ s/o/0/gr =~ m/\d\d/);
ok($str =~ s/o/0/gr !~ m/\d\d\d/);
__END__
ok 1
ok 2
1..2

Related

Perl Replace Capture Group With Length of Capture Group

Given :
my $str = "foo95285734776bar";
$str =~ s/([0-9]{2,4})/_????_/g;
What single regex where '????' is the length of $1 can produce output "foo_4__4__3_bar" ?
That is, where "9528" is replaced with "_4_", "5734" with "_4_", and the remaining "776" with "_3_".
You can use the /e modifier to add Perl code into the substitution part that is then evaled.
my $str = "foo95285734776bar";
$str =~ s/([0-9]{2,4})/'_' . length($1) . '_'/ge;
print $str;
Will output
foo_4__4__3_bar
Note that you now need a full Perl expression there. That's why you have to actually quote and concatenate the underscores.
From perlop:
A /e will cause the replacement portion to be treated as a full-fledged Perl expression and evaluated right then and there. It is, however, syntax checked at compile-time. A second e modifier will cause the replacement portion to be evaled before being run as a Perl expression.

extract string between two dots

I have a string of the following format:
word1.word2.word3
What are the ways to extract word2 from that string in perl?
I tried the following expression but it assigns 1 to sub:
#perleval $vars{sub} = $vars{string} =~ /.(.*)./; 0#
EDIT:
I have tried several suggestions, but still get the value of 1. I suspect that the entire expression above has a problem in addition to parsing. However, when I do simple assignment, I get the correct result:
#perleval $vars{sub} = $vars{string} ; 0#
assigns word1.word2.word3 to variable sub
. has a special meaning in regular expressions, so it needs to be escaped.
.* could match more than intended. [^.]* is safer.
The match operator (//) simply returns true/false in scalar context.
You can use any of the following:
$vars{sub} = $vars{string} =~ /\.([^.]*)\./ ? $1 : undef;
$vars{sub} = ( $vars{string} =~ /\.([^.]*)\./ )[0];
( $vars{sub} ) = $vars{string} =~ /\.([^.]*)\./;
The first one allows you to provide a default if there's no match.
Try:
/\.([^\.]+)\./
. has a special meaning and would need to be escaped. Then you would want to capture the values between the dots, so use a negative character class like ([^\.]+) meaning at least one non-dot. if you use (.*) you will get:
word1.stuff1.stuff2.stuff3.word2 to result in:
stuff1.stuff2.stuff3
But maybe you want that?
Here is my little example, I do find the perl one liners a little harder to read at times so I break it out:
use strict;
use warnings;
if ("stuff1.stuff2.stuff3" =~ m/\.([^.]+)\./) {
my $value = $1;
print $value;
}
else {
print "no match";
}
result
stuff2
. has a special meaning: any character (see the expression between your parentheses)
Therefore you have to escape it (\.) if you search a literal dot:
/\.(.*)\./
You've got to make sure you're asking for a list when you do the search.
my $x= $string =~ /look for (pattern)/ ;
sets $x to 1
my ($x)= $string =~ /look for (pattern)/ ;
sets $x to pattern.

Perl match regex variable \Q

I'm trying to match a regex in perl. The regex needs to be stored in a variable.
From this question I got \Q to match regex in a variable.
$regex = "\\$[0-9] (\\+|\\*) [0-9]";
$str = "$2 * 2";
if ($str =~ /\Q$regex/) { # regex is: \$[0-9] (\+|\*) [0-9]
print "Expression found :)\n";
} else {
print "Expression not found :(\n";
}
This matches fine in regexpal. It also works fine when I use the regex immediately without first putting it in $regex (i.e. without the \Q). What is the \Q doing to mess up my regex?
The \Q and \E pair can be used to escape all non-word characters within a double-quoted string context. For instance
perl -E 'say "abc[\Q[..]\E]def"'
output
abc[\[\.\.\]]def
I wonder why you think you need it, as it prevents all regex metacharacters from having their special effect. For instance \Q[0-9] will match exactly [0-9] instead of any single decimal digit
I would write your code like this. Note that I have changed double quotes to qr// when defining the pattern to create a compiled regex, and to single quotes when defining the target string to avoid Perl trying to interpolate built-in variable $2 into the string. You must always use strict and use warnings 'all' at the top of every Perl program you write
use strict;
use warnings 'all';
my $regex = qr/\$[0-9] [+*] [0-9]/;
my $str = '$2 * 2';
if ( $str =~ $regex ) {
print "Expression found :)\n";
}
else {
print "Expression not found :(\n";
}
output
Expression found :)

Why can't I store a regexp in a variable?

Given the following code,
my $string = "foo";
my $regex = s/foo/bar/;
$string =~ $regex;
print $string, "\n";
I would have expected the output to be bar, however it is foo. Why is that the case, and how can I solve that problem?
Note that in my actual case, the regex is more complicated, and I actually want to store several of them in a hash (so I can write something like $string =~ $rules{$key}).
You're looking for substitution, not only the regex part so I guess compiled regex (qr//) is not what you're looking for,
use strict;
use warnings;
my $string = "foo";
my $regex = sub { $_[0] =~ s/foo/bar/ };
$regex->($string);
print $string, "\n";
Your statement
my $regex = s/foo/bar/
is equivalent to
my $regex = $_ =~ s/foo/bar/
s/// returns the number of substitutions made, or it returns false (specifically, the empty string). So $regex is now '' or 1 (it could be more if the /g modifier was in effect) and
$string =~ $regex
is doing 'foo' =~ // or 'foo' =~ /1/ depending on what $_ contained originally.
You can store a regex pattern in a variable but, in your example, the regex is just foo, and there is a lot more going on than just that pattern
The statement s/foo/bar/ is more complex than it seems -- it is a fully-fledged statement that applies a regex pattern to a target string and substitutes a replacement string if the pattern is found. In this case the target string is the default variable $_ and the replacement string is foo. You could think of it as a call to a subroutine
substitute($_, 'foo', 'bar')
and the regex pattern is only the second parameter
What you can do is store a regex pattern. The regex part of that substitution is foo, and you can say
my $pattern = qr/foo/;
s/$pattern/bar/;
But you really should explain the problem that you're trying to solve so that we can help you better
In the assignment, you need to tell Perl not to evaluate the regular expression but just to keep it. This is what qr is for.
But you can't do this with whole substitutions, which is why Сухой27 suggests using a subroutine.

How can I extract a substring up to the first digit?

How can I find the first substring until I find the first digit?
Example:
my $string = 'AAAA_BBBB_12_13_14' ;
Result expected: 'AAAA_BBBB_'
Judging from the tags you want to use a regular expression. So let's build this up.
We want to match from the beginning of the string so we anchor with a ^ metacharacter at the beginning
We want to match anything but digits so we look at the character classes and find out this is \D
We want 1 or more of these so we use the + quantifier which means 1 or more of the previous part of the pattern.
This gives us the following regular expression:
^\D+
Which we can use in code like so:
my $string = 'AAAA_BBBB_12_13_14';
$string =~ /^\D+/;
my $result = $&;
Most people got half of the answer right, but they missed several key points.
You can only trust the match variables after a successful match. Don't use them unless you know you had a successful match.
The $&, $``, and$'` have well known performance penalties across all regexes in your program.
You need to anchor the match to the beginning of the string. Since Perl now has user-settable default match flags, you want to stay away from the ^ beginning of line anchor. The \A beginning of string anchor won't change what it does even with default flags.
This would work:
my $substring = $string =~ m/\A(\D+)/ ? $1 : undef;
If you really wanted to use something like $&, use Perl 5.10's per-match version instead. The /p switch provides non-global-perfomance-sucking versions:
my $substring = $string =~ m/\A\D+/p ? ${^MATCH} : undef;
If you're worried about what might be in \D, you can specify the character class yourself instead of using the shortcut:
my $substring = $string =~ m/\A[^0-9]+/p ? ${^MATCH} : undef;
I don't particularly like the conditional operator here, so I would probably use the match in list context:
my( $substring ) = $string =~ m/\A([^0-9]+)/;
If there must be a number in the string (so, you don't match an entire string that has no digits, you can throw in a lookahead, which won't be part of the capture:
my( $substring ) = $string =~ m/\A([^0-9]+)(?=[0-9])/;
$str =~ /(\d)/; print $`;
This code print string, which stand before matching
perl -le '$string=q(AAAA_BBBB_12_13_14);$string=~m{(\D+)} and print $1'
AAAA_BBBB_