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How to use different separators (/ , |) in a regular expression
(2 answers)
Closed 1 year ago.
While trying to debug an issue I am having with git-svn and the --ignore-paths option, I've run into this perl expression that I don't understand and haven't been able to find anything similar in perl documentation.
$path =~ m!$self->{ignore_regex}!
My understanding of this is that this is matching the $path string to the ignore_regex but it doesn't seem to match anything the way I expect. The part that I don't understand is the m! ! around $self->{ignore_regex}?
How should I be reading this syntax?
This is the match operator.
m!...! is more commonly written as /.../, but they are 100% identical.
If "/" is the delimiter then the initial m is optional. With the m you can use any pair of non-whitespace (ASCII) characters as delimiters. This is particularly useful for matching path names that contain "/", to avoid LTS (leaning toothpick syndrome). [...]
For example, the following are identical:
$path =~ /$self->{ignore_regex}/
$path =~ m/$self->{ignore_regex}/
$path =~ m^$self->{ignore_regex}^
$path =~ m{$self->{ignore_regex}}
The code in question checks if the string in $path matches the regex pattern in $self->{ignore_regex}.
Related
This question already has answers here:
How can I prevent Perl from interpreting double-backslash as single-backslash character?
(3 answers)
Closed 4 years ago.
I have this sample string, containing 2 backslashes. Please don't ask me for the source of the string, it is just a sample string.
my $string = "use Ppppp\\Ppppp;";
print $string;
Both, double quotes or quotes will print
use Ppppp\Ppppp;
Using
my $string = "\Quse Ppppp\\Ppppp;\E";
print $string;
will print
use\ Ppppp\\Ppppp\;
adding those extra backslashes to the output.
Is there a simple solution in perl to display the string "literally", without modifying the string like adding extra backslashes to escape?
I have this sample string, containing 2 backslashes. ...
my $string = "use Ppppp\\Ppppp;";
Sorry, but you're mistaken - that string only contains one backslash*, as \\ is a escape sequence in double-quoted (and single-quoted) strings that produces a single backslash. See also "Quote and Quote-like Operators" in perlop. If your string really does contain two backslashes, then you need to write "use Ppppp\\\\Ppppp;", or use a heredoc, as in:
chomp( my $string = <<'ENDSTR' );
use Ppppp\\Ppppp;
ENDSTR
If you want the string output as valid Perl source code (using its escaping), then you can use one of several options:
my $string = "use Ppppp\\Ppppp;";
# option 1
use Data::Dumper;
$Data::Dumper::Useqq=1;
$Data::Dumper::Terse=1;
print Dumper($string);
# option 2
use Data::Dump;
dd $string;
# option 3
use B;
print B::perlstring($string);
Each one of these will print "use Ppppp\\Ppppp;". (There are of course other modules available too. Personally I like Data::Dump. Data::Dumper is a core module.)
Using one of these modules is also the best way to verify what your $string variable really contains.
If that still doesn't fit your needs: A previous edit of your question said "How can I escape correctly all special characters including backslash?" - you'd have to specify a full list of which characters you consider special. You could do something like this, for example:
use 5.014; # for s///r
my $string = "use Ppppp\\Ppppp;";
print $string=~s/(?=[\\])/\\/gr;
That'll print $string with backslashes doubled, without modifying $string. You can also add more characters to the regex character class to add backslashes in front of those characters as well.
* Update: So I don't sound too pedantic here: of course the Perl source code contains two backslashes. But there is a difference between the literal source code and what the Perl string ends up containing, the same way that the string "Foo\nBar" contains a newline character instead of the two literal characters \ and n.
For the sake of completeness, as already discussed in the comments: \Q\E (aka quotemeta) is primarily meant for escaping any special characters that may be special to regular expressions (all ASCII characters not matching /[A-Za-z_0-9]/), which is why it is also escaping the spaces and semicolon.
Since you mention external files: If you are reading a line such as use Ppppp\\Ppppp; from an external file, then the Perl string will contain two backslashes, and if you print it, it will also show two backslashes. But if you wanted to represent that string as Perl source code, you have to write "use Ppppp\\\\Ppppp;" (or use one of the other methods from the question you linked to).
This question already has answers here:
How to Replace white space in perl
(3 answers)
Closed 5 years ago.
What does this line do in Perl?
s/\s//g;
I'm looking at a script that is used to search and count certain characters in an input file and I understand everything in the code except for this line. I was wondering what this line did for the script?
s/\s//g;
is short for
$_ =~ s/\s//g;
It is a substitution operator bound to $_. It replaces all sequences in $_ that match the regex pattern \s with nothing. (Without g, it would only replace the first.)
\s matches a character of whitespace.
Is there a difference between ($ipAddrResult =~ /Regex/gm) and ($ipAddrResult =~ m/Regex/g) in perl string matching? When I google online I get explanation for second one and not the first one. The file I tried to edit has first condition.
The ms in different places mean different things.
Let's look at the second example first.
m// is the regular expression matching operator. As a shortcut, the m can be omitted, so
$foo =~ m/$pattern/;
is exactly the same as
$foo =~ /$pattern/;
The only time the m is required is if you want to use delimiters other than / for your pattern. You can do, for example
$foo =~ m!$pattern!;
or
$foo =~ m[$pattern];
and so on, but these all require the m to be there.
In the first example, the m after the regex is a modifier flag which tells the regex how to behave. The regex flags are documented in the perlre man page, which has this to say:
m -
Treat string as multiple lines. That is, change "^" and "$" from
matching the start or end of line only at the left and right ends of
the string to matching them anywhere within the string.
So this:
$foo =~ /$pattern/m;
is the same as this:
$foo =~ m/$pattern/m;
and the same as this:
$foo =~ m{$pattern}m;
In the expression
/Regex/gm
The "m" stands for multi-line matching. In the expression:
m/Regex/g
The "m" stands for "match" as opposed to a substitution, which looks like this:
s/Regex/replacement/g
Because matching (vs. substitution) is the default, you can generally leave off the "m/" from the start of the expression. In other words "m/Regex/g" is just a synonym for "/Regex/g".
Yes, m/regex/g is syntactically equivalent to just /regex/g. That is, it doesn't activate the /m flag at all. Compare to s/foo/bar/ which is not at all the same as s/foo/bar/s. The name m stands for "match" I believe.
I'm new to Perl and I have been learning about the Perl basics for past two days.
I'm converting a Perl script to Java program gradually.
In the Perl script, I came across this code.
if( $arr[$i]=~/^0$/ ){
...
...
}
I know that $arr[$i] means getting the ith element from the array arr.
But what does =~/^0$/ mean?
To what are they comparing the array's element?
I searched for this, but I couldn't find it.
Someone please explain me.
FYI, the arr contains floating values.
if ($arr[$i]) =~ /^0$/) is roughly equivalent to if ($arr[$i] eq "0"), but not exactly the same, as it will match both the strings "0" and "0\n". If $arr[$1] was read from a file or stdin and it has not been chomped, this can be a very significant distinction.
if ($arr[$i] == 0), on the other hand, will match any string beginning with a non-numeric character or a string of zeroes/whitespace which is not followed by a numeric character, although it will generate a warning if the string contains non-whitespace, non-digit characters or contains only whitespace (and warnings are enabled, of course).
=~ is a binding operator.
"Binary "=~" binds a scalar expression to a pattern match"
/^0$/ on the right hand side is the regex
^ Match the beginning of the line
$ Match the end of the line (or before newline at the end)
And the zero has no special meaning.
^ and $ are regex anchors which says $arr[$i] should begin with 0 and there is end of string immediately after it.
It can be written as
if ($arr[$i] eq "0" or $arr[$i] eq "0\n")
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Closed 10 years ago.
I guess the tag is a variable, and it is checking for 9eaf - but does this exist in Perl?
What is the "=~" sign doing here and what are the "/" characters before and after 9eaf doing?
if ($tag =~ /9eaf/)
{
# Do something
}
=~ is the operator testing a regular expression match. The expression /9eaf/ is a regular expression (the slashes // are delimiters, the 9eaf is the actual regular expression). In words, the test is saying "If the variable $tag matches the regular expression /9eaf/ ..." and this match occurs if the string stored in $tag contains those characters 9eaf consecutively, in order, at any point. So this will be true for the strings
9eaf
xyz9eaf
9eafxyz
xyz9eafxyz
and many others, but not the strings
9eaxxx
9xexaxfx
and many others. Look up the 'perlre' man page for more information on regular expressions, or google "perl regular expression".
The '=~' operator is a binary binding operator that indicates the following operation will search or modify the scalar on the left.
The default (unspecified) operator is 'm' for match.
The matching operator has a pair of characters that designate where the regular expression begins and ends. Most commonly, this is '//'.
Give Perl Re tutorial a read.
The code is testing whether 9eaf is a substring of the value of $tag.
$tag =~ /9eaf/
is short for
$tag =~ m/9eaf/
where m// is the match operator. It matches the regular expression pattern (regexp) 9eaf against the value bound by =~ (returned by the left hand side of =~).
Operators, including m// and =~, are documented in perlop.
Regular expressions (e.g. 9eaf) are documented in perlre, perlretut.
That checks for a match of the scalar $tag (which is presumably a string) against the regular expression /9eaf/, which merely checks to see if the string "9eaf" is a substring of $tag. Check out perldoc perlretut.