Replace only up to N matches on a line - regex

In Perl, how to write a regular expression that replaces only up to N matches per string?
I.e., I'm looking for a middle ground between s/aa/bb/; and s/aa/bb/g;. I want to allow multiple substitutions, but only up to N times.

I can think of three reliable ways. The first is to replace everything after the Nth match with itself.
my $max = 5;
$s =~ s/(aa)/ $max-- > 0 ? 'bb' : $1 /eg;
That's not very efficient if there are far more than N matches. For that, we need to move the loop out of the regex engine. The next two methods are ways of doing that.
my $max = 5;
my $out = '';
$out .= $1 . 'bb' while $max-- && $in =~ /\G(.*?)aa/gcs;
$out .= $1 if $in =~ /\G(.*)/gcs;
And this time, in-place:
my $max = 5;
my $replace = 'bb';
while ($max-- && $s =~ s/\G.*?\Kaa/$replace/s) {
pos($s) = $-[0] + length($replace);
}
You might be tempted to do something like
my $max = 5;
$s =~ s/aa/bb/ for 1..$max;
but that approach will fail for other patterns and/or replacement expressions.
my $max = 5;
$s =~ s/aa/ba/ for 1..$max; # XXX Turns 'aaaaaaaa'
# into 'bbbbbaaa'
# instead of 'babababa'
And of course, starting from the beginning of the string every time could be expensive.

What you want is not posible in regular expressions. But you can put the replacement in a for-loop:
my $i;
my $aa = 'aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa';
for ($i=0;$i<4;$i++) {
$aa =~ s/aa/bb/;
}
print "$aa\n";
result:
bbbbbbbbaaaaaaaaaaaa

You can use the /e flag which evaluates the right side as an expression:
my $n = 3;
$string =~ s/(aa)/$n-- > 0 ? "bb" : $1/ge;

Here's a solution using the /e modifier, with which you can use
perl code to generate the replacement string:
my $count = 0;
$string =~ s{ $pattern }
{
$count++;
if ($count < $limit ) {
$replace;
} else {
$&; # faking a no-op, replacing with the original match.
}
}xeg;
With perl 5.10 or later you can drop the $& (which has weird
performance complications) and use ${^MATCH} via the /p modifier
$string =~ s{ $pattern }
{
$count++;
if ($count < $limit ) {
$replace;
} else {
${^MATCH};
}
}xegp;
It's too bad you can't just do this, but you can't:
last if $count >= $limit;

Related

Dynamically capture regular expression match in Perl

I'm trying to dynamically catch regex matching in Perl. I've known that eval will help me do this but I may be doing something wrong.
Code:
use strict;
use warnings;
my %testHash = (
'(\d+)\/(\d+)\/(\d+)' => '$1$2$3'
);
my $str = '1/12/2016';
foreach my $pattern (keys (%testHash)) {
my $value = $testHash{$pattern};
my $result;
eval {
local $_ = $str;
/$pattern/;
print "\$1 - $1\n";
print "\$2 - $2\n";
print "\$3 - $3\n";
eval { print "$value\n"; }
}
}
Is it also possible to store captured regex patterns in an array?
I believe what you really want is a dynamic version of the following:
say $str =~ s/(\d+)\/(\d+)\/(\d+)/$1$2$3/gr;
String::Substitution provides what we need to achieve that.
use String::Substitution qw( gsub_copy );
for my $pattern (keys(%testHash)) {
my $replacement = $testHash{$pattern};
say gsub_copy($str, $pattern, $replacement);
}
Note that $replacement can also be a callback. This permits far more complicated substitutions. For example, if you wanted to convert 1/12/2016 into 2016-01-12, you could use the following:
'(\d+)/(\d+)/(\d+)' => sub { sprintf "%d-%02d-%02d", #_[3,1,2] },
To answer your actual question:
use String::Substitution qw( interpolate_match_vars last_match_vars );
for my $pattern (keys(%testHash)) {
my $template = $testHash{$pattern};
$str =~ $pattern # Or /$pattern/ if you prefer
or die("No match!\n");
say interpolate_match_vars($template, last_match_vars());
}
I am not completely sure what you want to do here, but I don't think your program does what you think it does.
You are useing eval with a BLOCK of code. That's like a try block. If it dies inside of that eval block, it will catch that error. It will not run your string like it was code. You need a string eval for that.
Instead of explaining that, here's an alternative.
This program uses sprintf and numbers the parameters. The %1$s syntax in the pattern says _take the first argument (1$) and format it as a string (%s). You don't need to localize or assign to $_ to do a match. The =~ operator does that on other variables for you. I also use qr{} to create a quoted regular expression (essentially a variable containing a precompiled pattern) that I can use directly. Because of the {} as delimiter, I don't need to escape the slashes.
use strict;
use warnings;
use feature 'say'; # like print ..., "\n"
my %testHash = (
qr{(\d+)/(\d+)/(\d+)} => '%1$s.%2$s.%3$s',
qr{(\d+)/(\d+)/(\d+) nomatch} => '%1$s.%2$s.%3$s',
qr{(\d+)/(\d+)/(\d\d\d\d)} => '%3$4d-%2$02d-%1$02d',
qr{\d} => '%s', # no capture group
);
my $str = '1/12/2016';
foreach my $pattern ( keys %testHash ) {
my #captures = ( $str =~ $pattern );
say "pattern: $pattern";
if ($#+ == 0) {
say " no capture groups";
next;
}
unless (#captures) {
say " no match";
next;
}
# debug-output
for my $i ( 1 .. $#- ) {
say sprintf " \$%d - %s", $i, $captures[ $i - 1 ];
}
say sprintf $testHash{$pattern}, #captures;
}
I included four examples:
The first pattern is the one you had. It uses %1$s and so on as explained above.
The second one does not match. We check the number of elements in #captured by looking at it in scalar context.
The third one shows that you can also reorder the result, or even use the sprintf formatting.
The last one has no capture group. We check by looking at the index of the last element ($# as the sigil for arrays that usually have an # sigil) in #+, which holds the offsets of the ends of the last successful submatches in the currently active dynamic scope. The first element is the end of the overall match, so if this only has one element, we don't have capture groups.
The output for me is this:
pattern: (?^:(\d+)/(\d+)/(\d\d\d\d))
$1 - 1
$2 - 12
$3 - 2016
2016-12-01
pattern: (?^:(\d+)/(\d+)/(\d+) nomatch)
no match
pattern: (?^:\d)
no capture groups
pattern: (?^:(\d+)/(\d+)/(\d+))
$1 - 1
$2 - 12
$3 - 2016
1.12.2016
Note that the order in the output is mixed up. That's because hashes are not ordered in Perl, and if you iterate over the keys in a hash without sort the order is random.
Apologies! I realized both my question and sample code were both vague. But after reading your suggestions I came of with the following code.
I haven't optimized this code yet and there is a limit to the replacement.
foreach my $key (keys %testHash) {
if ( $str =~ $key ) {
my #matchArr = ($str =~ $key); # Capture all matches
# Search and replace (limited from $1 to $9)
for ( my $i = 0; $i < #matchArr; $i++ ) {
my $num = $i+1;
$testHash{$key} =~ s/\$$num/$matchArr[$i]/;
}
$result = $testHash{$key};
last;
}
}
print "$result\n";
Evaluing the regexp in list context returns the matches. so in your example:
use Data::Dumper; # so we can see the result
foreach my $pattern (keys (%testHash)) {
my #a = ($str =~/$pattern/);
print Dumper(\#a);
}
would do the job.
HTH
Georg
Is it also possible to store captured regex patterns in an array?
Of course it is possible to store captured substrings in an array:
#!/usr/bin/env perl
use strict;
use warnings;
my #patterns = map qr{$_}, qw{
(\d+)/(\d+)/(\d+)
};
my $str = '1/12/2016';
foreach my $pattern ( #patterns ) {
my #captured = ($str =~ $pattern)
or next;
print "'$_'\n" for #captured;
}
Output:
'1'
'12'
'2016'
I do not quite understand what you are trying to do with combinations of local, eval EXPR and eval BLOCK in your code and the purpose of the following hash:
my %testHash = (
'(\d+)\/(\d+)\/(\d+)' => '$1$2$3'
);
If you are trying to codify that this pattern should result in three captures, you can do that like this:
my #tests = (
{
pattern => qr{(\d+)/(\d+)/(\d+)},
ncaptures => 3,
}
);
my $str = '1/12/2016';
foreach my $test ( #tests ) {
my #captured = ($str =~ $test->{pattern})
or next;
unless (#captured == $test->{ncaptures}) {
# handle failure
}
}
See this answer to find out how you can automate counting the number of capture groups in a pattern. Using the technique in that answer:
#!/usr/bin/env perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use Test::More;
my #tests = map +{ pattern => qr{$_}, ncaptures => number_of_capturing_groups($_) }, qw(
(\d+)/(\d+)/(\d+)
);
my $str = '1/12/2016';
foreach my $test ( #tests ) {
my #captured = ($str =~ $test->{pattern});
ok #captured == $test->{ncaptures};
}
done_testing;
sub number_of_capturing_groups {
"" =~ /|$_[0]/;
return $#+;
}
Output:
ok 1
1..1

perl count line in double looping, if match regular expression plus 1

I open a file by putting the line to an array. Inside this file based on the regular expression that contains a duplicate value. If the regular expression is a match I want to count it. The regular expression may look like this
$b =~ /\/([^\/]+)##/. I want to match $1 value.
my #array = do
{
open my $FH, '<', 'abc.txt' or die 'unable to open the file\n';
<$FH>;
};
Below is the way I do, it will get the same line in my file. Thank for help.
foreach my $b (#array)
{
$conflictTemp = 0;
$b =~ /\/([^\/]+)##/;
$b = $1;
#print "$b\n";
foreach my $c (#array)
{
$c =~ /\/([^\/]+)##/;
$c = $1;
if($b eq $c)
{
$conflictTemp ++;
#print "$b , $c \n"
#if($conflictTemp > 1)
#{
# $conflict ++;
#}
}
}
}
Below is the some sample data, two sentences are duplicates
/a/b/c/d/code/Debug/atlantis_digital/c/d/code/Debug/atlantis_digital.map##/main/place.09/2
/a/b/c/d/code/C5537_mem_map.cmd##/main/place.09/0
/a/b/c/d/code/.settings/org.eclipse.cdt.managedbuilder.core.prefs##/main/4
/a/b/c/d/code/.project_initial##/main/2
/a/b/c/d/code/.project##/main/CSS5/5
/a/b/c/d/code/.cproject##/main/CSS5/10
/a/b/c/d/code/.cdtproject##/main/place.09/0
/a/b/c/d/code/.cdtproject##/main/place.09/0
/a/b/c/d/code/.cdtbuild_initial##/main/2
/a/b/c/d/code/.**cdtbuild##**/main/CSS5/2
/a/b/c/d/code/.**cdtbuild##**/main/CSS5/2
/a/b/c/d/code/.ccsproject##/main/CSS5/3
It looks like you're trying to iterate each element of the array, select some data via pattern match, and then count dupes. Is that correct?
Would it not be easier to:
my %count_of;
while ( <$FH> ) {
my ( $val ) = /\/([^\/]+)##/;
$count_of{$val}++;
}
And then, for the variables that have more than one (e.g. there's a duplicate):
print join "\n", grep { $count_of{$_} > 1 } keys %count_of;
Alternatively, if you're just wanting to play 'spot the dupe':
#!/usr/bin/env perl
use strict;
use warnings;
my %seen;
my $match = qr/\/([^\/]+)##/;
while ( <DATA> ) {
my ( $value ) = m/$match/ or next;
print if $seen{$value}++;
}
__DATA__
/a/b/c/d/code/Debug/atlantis_digital/c/d/code/Debug/atlantis_digital.map##/main/place.09/2
/a/b/c/d/code/C5537_mem_map.cmd##/main/place.09/0
/a/b/c/d/code/.settings/org.eclipse.cdt.managedbuilder.core.prefs##/main/4
/a/b/c/d/code/.project_initial##/main/2
/a/b/c/d/code/.project##/main/CSS5/5
/a/b/c/d/code/.cproject##/main/CSS5/10
/a/b/c/d/code/.cdtproject##/main/place.09/0
/a/b/c/d/code/.cdtproject##/main/place.09/0
/a/b/c/d/code/.cdtbuild_initial##/main/2
/a/b/c/d/code/.cdtbuild##/main/CSS5/2
/a/b/c/d/code/.cdtbuild##/main/CSS5/2
/a/b/c/d/code/.ccsproject##/main/CSS5/3
The problem has been solved by the previous answer - I just want to offer an alternate flavour that;
Spells out the regex
Uses the %seen hash to record the line the pattern first appears; to enable
slightly more detailed reporting
use v5.12;
use warnings;
my $regex = qr/
\/ # A literal slash followed by
( # Capture to $1 ...
[^\/]+ # ... anything that's not a slash
) # close capture to $1
## # Must be immdiately followed by literal ##
/x;
my %line_num ;
while (<>) {
next unless /$regex/ ;
my $pattern = $1 ;
if ( $line_num{ $pattern } ) {
say "'$pattern' appears on lines ", $line_num{ $pattern }, " and $." ;
next ;
}
$line_num{ $pattern } = $. ; # Record the line number
}
# Ran on data above will produce;
# '.cdtproject' appears on lines 7 and 8
# '.cdtbuild' appears on lines 10 and 11

Perl Grepping from an Array

I need to grep a value from an array.
For example i have a values
#a=('branches/Soft/a.txt', 'branches/Soft/h.cpp', branches/Main/utils.pl');
#Array = ('branches/Soft/a.txt', 'branches/Soft/h.cpp', branches/Main/utils.pl','branches/Soft/B2/c.tct', 'branches/Docs/A1/b.txt');
Now, i need to loop #a and find each value matches to #Array. For Example
It works for me with grep. You'd do it the exact same way as in the More::ListUtils example below, except for having grep instead of any. You can also shorten it to
my $got_it = grep { /$str/ } #paths;
my #matches = grep { /$str/ } #paths;
This by default tests with /m against $_, each element of the list in turn. The $str and #paths are the same as below.
You can use the module More::ListUtils as well. Its function any returns true/false depending on whether the condition in the block is satisfied for any element in the list, ie. whether there was a match in this case.
use warnings;
use strict;
use Most::ListUtils;
my $str = 'branches/Soft/a.txt';
my #paths = ('branches/Soft/a.txt', 'branches/Soft/b.txt',
'branches/Docs/A1/b.txt', 'branches/Soft/B2/c.tct');
my $got_match = any { $_ =~ m/$str/ } #paths;
With the list above, containing the $str, the $got_match is 1.
Or you can roll it by hand and catch the match as well
foreach my $p (#paths) {
print "Found it: $1\n" if $p =~ m/($str)/;
}
This does print out the match.
Note that the strings you show in your example do not contain the one to match. I added it to my list for a test. Without it in the list no match is found in either of the examples.
To test for more than one string, with the added sample
my #strings = ('branches/Soft/a.txt', 'branches/Soft/h.cpp', 'branches/Main/utils.pl');
my #paths = ('branches/Soft/a.txt', 'branches/Soft/h.cpp', 'branches/Main/utils.pl',
'branches/Soft/B2/c.tct', 'branches/Docs/A1/b.txt');
foreach my $str (#strings) {
foreach my $p (#paths) {
print "Found it: $1\n" if $p =~ m/($str)/;
}
# Or, instead of the foreach loop above use
# my $match = grep { /$str/ } #paths;
# print "Matched for $str\n" if $match;
}
This prints
Found it: branches/Soft/a.txt
Found it: branches/Soft/h.cpp
Found it: branches/Main/utils.pl
When the lines with grep are uncommented and foreach ones commented out I get the corresponding prints for the same strings.
The slashes dot in $a will pose a problem so you either have to escape them it when doing regex match or use a simple eq to find the matches:
Regex match with $a escaped:
my #matches = grep { /\Q$a\E/ } #array;
Simple comparison with "equals":
my #matches = grep { $_ eq $a } #array;
With your sample data both will give an empty array #matches because there is no match.
This Solved My Question. Thanks to all especially #zdim for the valuable time and support
my #SVNFILES = ('branches/Soft/a.txt', 'branches/Soft/b.txt');
my #paths = ('branches/Soft/a.txt', 'branches/Soft/b.txt',
'branches/Docs/A1/b.txt', 'branches/Soft/B2/c.tct');
foreach my $svn (#SVNFILES)
{
chomp ($svn);
my $m = grep { /$svn/ } (#paths);
if ( $m eq '0' ) {
print "Files Mismatch\n";
exit 1;
}
}
You should escape characters like '/' and '.' in any regex when you need it as a character.
Likewise :
$a="branches\/Soft\/a\.txt"
Retry whatever you did with either grep or perl with that. If it still doesn't work, tell us precisely what you tried.

how to extract string with any operator between?

I have an array contain #arr = { "a=b", "a>b", "a<b", "a!=b", "a-b" }. What is the best way to get a and b with any operator between. I can extract by
for($i=0; $i<=$#arr; $i++){
$str = $arr[$i];
if($str =~ m/^(.*?)(\s*=\s*)(.*)(;)/g){
my $d = $1;
my $e = $3;
}
Follow by all if statement with the possible operator like "!=", "<" etc. But this will make my code look messy. Any better solution for this?
You could try something like this one liner
perl -e '#a = ("a=b","a>b","a<b","a!=b","a-b"); for $l (#a) { $l =~ s/(.).*(.)/$1/; print "$1$2\n"};'
The key thing is the greedy match ie "(.*)" between the two single character matches ie "(.)". To really make sure that you start at the start and end of the strings you could use this
perl -e '#a = ("a=b","a>b","a<b","a!=b","a-b"); for $l (#a) { $l =~ s/^(.).*(.)$/$1/; print "$1$2\n"};'
A complete working example that demonstrates the whole thing would be
#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
my #expressions = ("a=b","a>b","a<b","a!=b","a-b");
for my $exp (#expressions) {
$exp =~ s/^(.).*(.)$/$1$2/;
print "$1$2 is the same as $exp\n";
};
A very simple regex might be
/^(\w+)\s*(\W+)\s*(\w+)$/
Or you enumerate possible operators
/^(\w+)\s*(=|!=|<|>|<=|>=|\+|-|\*|\/|==)\s*(\w+)$/
It depends whether the input can be trusted or not. If not, you might have to be more meticulous w.r.t. the identifiers, too. Here's a simpler loop, and no need to use m//g(lobal). Not sure about the semicolon - omitted it.
my #arr = ( "a=b", "a>b", "a<b", "a!=b", "a-b" );
for my $str (#arr){
if($str =~ /^(\w+)\s*(=|!=|<|>|<=|>=|\+|-|\*|\/|==)\s*(\w+)$/ ){
my $d = $1;
my $e = $3;
print "d=$d e=$e\n";
}
}
Later If you enumerate the operators, you can also add word symbols:
if($str =~ /^(\w+)\s*(=|!=|<|>|<=|>=|\+|-|\*|\/|==|x?or|and)\s*(\w+)$/ ){
...
if there always 'a' and 'b' at the beginning and the end you could try:
my $str = 'a<b';
my( $op ) = $str =~ /^a(.*)b$/;
Not a well thought out answer. Will reconsider the problem.

How do I use perl regex to extract the digit value from '[1]'?

My code...
$option = "[1]";
if ($option =~ m/^\[\d\]$/) {print "Activated!"; $str=$1;}
I need a way to drop off the square brackets from $option. $str = $1 does not work for some reason. Please advise.
To get $1 to work you need to capture the value inside the brackets using parentheses, i.e:
if ($option =~ m/^\[(\d)\]$/) {print "Activated!"; $str=$1;}
if ($option =~ m/^\[(\d)\]$/) { print "Activated!"; $str=$1; }
Or
if (my ($str) = $option =~ m/^\[(\d)\]$/) { print "Activated!" }
Or
if (my ($str) = $option =~ /(\d)/) { print "Activated!" }
..and a bunch of others. You forgot to capture your match with ()'s.
EDIT:
if ($option =~ /(?<=^\[)\d(?=\]$)/p && (my $str = ${^MATCH})) { print "Activated!" }
Or
my $str;
if ($option =~ /^\[(\d)(?{$str = $^N})\]$/) { print "Activated!" }
Or
if ($option =~ /^\[(\d)\]$/ && ($str = $+)) { print "Activated!" }
For ${^MATCH}, $^N, and $+, perlvar.
I love these questions : )