concatination in do operator argument doesn't work - postgresql

concatenation in do doesn't work
Can any one explain why
this code work:
do 'begin perform 2; end;';
better say doesn't generate errors
and that:
do 'begin perform '||'2'||'; end;';
generate
ERROR: syntax error at or near "||"
LINE 1: do 'begin perform '||'2'||'; end;';

The argument to DO has to be a string literal.
From the manual:
Parameters (...) code (...) This must be specified as a string literal (...)
An expression concatenating strings isn't a literal.

Related

Substitution on string in perl changes string to an integer value

I am trying to do delete some characters matching a regex in perl and when I do that it returns an integer value.
I have tried substituting multiple spaces in a string with empty string or basically deleting the space.
#! /usr/intel/bin/perl
my $line = "foo/\\bar car";
print "$line\n";
#$line = ~s/(\\|(\s)+)+//; <--Ultimately need this, where backslash and space needs to be deleted. Tried this, returns integer value
$line = ~s/\s+//; <-- tried this, returns integer value
print "$line\n";
Expected results:
First print: foo/\bar car
Second print: foo/barcar
Actual result:
First print: foo/\\bar car
Second print: 18913234908
The proper solution is
$line =~ s/[\s\\]+//g;
Note:
g flag to substitute all occurrences
no space between = and ~
=~ is a single operator, binding the substitution operator s to the target variable $line.
Inserting a space (as in your code) means s binds to the default target, $_, because there is no explicit target, and then the return value (which is the number of substitutions made) has all its bits inverted (unary ~ is bitwise complement) and is assigned to $line.
In other words,
$line = ~ s/...//
parses as
$line = ~(s/...//)
which is equivalent to
$line = ~($_ =~ s/...//)
If you had enabled use warnings, you would've gotten the following message:
Use of uninitialized value $_ in substitution (s///) at prog.pl line 6.
You've already accepted an answer, but I thought it would be useful to give you a few more details.
As you now know,
$line = ~s/\s+//;
is completely different to:
$line =~ s/\s+//;
You wanted the second, but you typed the first. So what did you end up with?
~ is "bitwise negation operator". That is, it converts its argument to a binary number and then bit-flips that number - all the zeroes become ones and all the ones become zeros.
So you're asking for the bitwise negation of s/\s+//. Which means the bitwise negation works on the value returned by s/\s+//. And the value returned by a substitution is the number of substitutions made.
We can now work out all of the details.
s/\s+// carries out your substitution and returns the number of substitutions made (an integer).
~s/\s+// returns the bitwise negation of the integer returned by the substitution (which is also an integer).
$line = ~s/\s+// takes that second integer and assigns it to the variable $line.
Probably, the first step returns 1 (you don't use /g on your s/.../.../, so only one substitution will be made). It's easy enough to get the bitwise negation of 1.
$ perl -E'say ~1'
18446744073709551614
So that might well be the integer that you're seeing (although it might be different on a 32-bit system).

why the syntax `&name arg1 arg2 ...` can't be used to call a Perl subroutine?

for a Perl subroutine, if passing 0 argument, I can use 4 forms to call it. But if passing 1 or more arguments, there is one form that I can't use, please see below:
sub name
{
print "hello\n";
}
# 4 forms to call
name;
&name;
name();
&name();
sub aname
{
print "#_\n";
}
aname "arg1", "arg2";
#&aname "arg1", "arg2"; # syntax error
aname("arg1", "arg2");
&aname("arg1", "arg2");
The error output is
String found where operator expected at tmp1.pl line 16, near "&aname "arg1""
(Missing operator before "arg1"?)
syntax error at tmp1.pl line 16, near "&aname "arg1""
Execution of tmp1.pl aborted due to compilation errors.
Can someone explain the error output from the compiler's point of view? I don't understand why it complains about missing operator.
Thanks
It's documented in perlsub:
To call subroutines:
NAME(LIST); # & is optional with parentheses.
NAME LIST; # Parentheses optional if predeclared/imported.
&NAME(LIST); # Circumvent prototypes.
&NAME; # Makes current #_ visible to called subroutine.
With &NAME "arg", perl sees &NAME() "ARG", so it thinks there's an operator missing between the sub call and "ARG".
In Perl 5, you don't need the & in most cases.

Perl and PostgreSQL escaping $

I have an SQL statement executed from perl.
$my_sql = qq (
SELECT 1 AS ....
);
Then I do
my $sm = $dbh->prepare($my_sql);
$sm->execute;
The issue is that my SQL has regex like this in many places.
value ~ '^[1-9][0-9]?/[1-9][0-9]?/[1-9][0-9]{3}$':
So I get errors when I execute the perl script because of these '$'.
Use of uninitialized value $' in concatenation (.) or string at
DBD::Pg::st execute failed: execute called with an unbound placeholder at
How can I avoid these errors and make the SQL statement work?
qq(something) is just another way to say "something" while q(something) means 'something'.
The difference between "this" and 'this' is interpolation, which is enabled only inside double quotes.
my $foo = 123;
print "<< $foo >>"; # prints << 123 >>
print '<< $foo >>'; # prints << $foo >>
So, since $ is not special symbol inside '', just change qq to q.

Perl syntax error: Bareword found where operator expected

As the title suggests how could I accomplish this?
I have been following a tutorial, but I get a syntax error:
Bareword found where operator expected at arrays_and_variables.pl line
26, near "$2names"
(Missing operator before names?) syntax error at
arrays_and_variables.pl line 26, near "$2names " Execution of
arrays_and_variables.pl aborted due to compilation errors.
The code I have so far is:
#names = ('james','dylan','max');
# join elements of array into a schalar variable.
$2names = join ('', #names);
print $s2names;
2names is an invalid variable name. Names can't start with a number—they have to begin with a letter or an underscore.

$macro substitution - ExpandString limitations

I am trying to implement macro replacement based on this discussion. Basically it works, but seems the ExpandString have some limitatoins:
main.ps1:
$foo = 'foo'
$text = [IO.File]::ReadAllText('in.config')
$ExecutionContext.InvokeCommand.ExpandString($text) | out-file 'out.config'
in.config (OK):
$foo
in.config (Error: "Encountered end of line while processing a string token."):
"
in.config (Error: "Missing ' at end of string."):
'
The documentation states:
Return Value: The expanded string
with all the variable and expression
substitutions done.
What is 'expression substitution' (may be this is my case)?
Is there some workaround?
The error is occurring because quotes (single and double) are special characters to the PowerShell runtime. They indicate a string and if they are to be used as just that character, they need to be escaped.
A possible workaround would be to escape quotes with a backtick, depending on your desired result.
For example if my text file had
'$foo'
The resulting expansion of that string would be
PS>$text = [io.file]::ReadAllText('test.config')
PS>$ExecutionContext.InvokeCommand.ExpandString($text)
$foo
If you wanted to have that variable expanded, you would need to escape those quotes.
`'$foo`'
PS>$text = [io.file]::ReadAllText('test.config')
PS>$ExecutionContext.InvokeCommand.ExpandString($text)
'foo'
or if you were going to have an unpaired single or double quote, you would need to escape it.
You could do a -replace on the string to escape those characters, but you'll have to make sure that is the desired effect across the board.
PS>$single, $double = "'", '"'
PS>$text = [io.file]::ReadAllText('test.config') -replace "($single|$double)", '`$1'
PS>$ExecutionContext.InvokeCommand.ExpandString($text)
NOTE: After you do the ExpandString call, you won't have the backticks hanging around anymore.