Gossamer Forum: General: Perl Programming: combining whitespace reg ex

Feb 8, 2003, 10:29 AM

adrockjames

Novice (35 posts)

Feb 8, 2003, 10:29 AM

Post #1 of 5

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combining whitespace reg ex

hi,

is there a way to convert these three statements into one?

$here =~ s|^\s+||gs;
$here =~ s|\s+$||gs;
$here =~ s|\s+|_|gs;

obviously, i want to trim whitespace at the beginning and end, then turn any remaining whitespace+ into a '_'

all the docs i've looked at show elimating whitespace at beginning and end as separate statements.

thanks!

Feb 8, 2003, 11:37 AM

Paul

Veteran (19537 posts)

Feb 8, 2003, 11:37 AM

Post #2 of 5

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Re: [adrockjames] combining whitespace reg ex In reply to

Well you "can" combine them into one but it involves a bit of cheating :)

Code:
$here =~ s|^(.*)$| 
         my $grab = $1; 
         $grab = substr($grab, index($grab, " ")) if (substr($1,0,1) eq " "); 
         $grab = substr($grab, 0, rindex($grab, " ")) if (substr($1,-1,1) eq " "); 
         $grab =~ y/ /_/ if (index($grab, " ") > -1); 
|seg;

But seriously. You can combine them into two regexs but not one.

Code:
$here =~ s#^\s+|\s+$##sg;

Feb 12, 2003, 11:53 AM

utinni

Novice (11 posts)

Feb 12, 2003, 11:53 AM

Post #3 of 5

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Re: [Paul] combining whitespace reg ex In reply to

In one regex, eh? I accept that challenge! Smile

How about:

Code:
$here =~ s/(^\s+)|(\s+$)|(\s+)/defined($3)?'_':''/eg

However, I'd not recommend that for maintainable code ...

Cheers,
Dave.

Feb 12, 2003, 12:11 PM

Paul

Veteran (19537 posts)

Feb 12, 2003, 12:11 PM

Post #4 of 5

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Re: [utinni] combining whitespace reg ex In reply to

Ah yes, mine looks a little long in comparison :)

Btw, you wouldn't happen to be davorg would you? Wink

Feb 12, 2003, 3:05 PM

utinni

Novice (11 posts)

Feb 12, 2003, 3:05 PM

Post #5 of 5

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Re: [Paul] combining whitespace reg ex In reply to

Quote:

Btw, you wouldn't happen to be davorg would you?

Sorry, that's not me.
Just found this forum in passing one day, and felt I could be of assistance to some of the posters.

Cheers,
Dave.