Matching a zero with String::Substitution - perl

I am trying to match a digit with String::Substitution; it works fine if the digit is not zero. If the digit is zero it substitutes the empty string instead of the digit. For example:
use strict;
use warnings;
use Data::Dump;
use String::Substitution;
my #data = qw(0 1);
for (#data) {
my $str = $_;
my $regex = qr/(\d)/;
my $replace = '$1';
my $result_str = String::Substitution::gsub_copy($str, $regex, $replace);
my #m = $str =~ /$regex/g;
dd $result_str;
dd #m;
}
The output is:
""
0
1
1
expected output would be:
0
0
1
1

To avoid "uninitialized" warnings, version 1.001 of the module attempts to convert undefined placeholders into empty strings. However, it erroneously uses a truth test rather an defined test to determine which values to replace with an empty string.
map { ($$_) || '' } ( 1 .. $#- )
That code needs to be changed to
map { defined($$_) ? $$_ : '' } ( 1 .. $#- )
A bug report has been submitted.

Related

Scoping in Perl

As a biology student, I'm trying to extend my programming knowledge and I ran into a problem with Perl.
I'm trying to create a program that generates random DNA strings and performs analysis work on the generated data.
In the first part of the program, I am able to print out the strings stored in the array, but the second part I cannot retrieve all but one of the elements of the array.
Could this be part of the scoping rules of Perl?
#!usr/bin/perl
# generate a random DNA strings and print it to file specified by the user.
$largearray[0] = 0;
print "How many nucleotides for the string?\n";
$n = <>;
$mylong = $n;
print "how many strings?\n";
$numstrings = <>;
# #largearray =();
$j = 0;
while ( $j < $numstrings ) {
$numstring = ''; # start with the empty string;
$dnastring = '';
$i = 0;
while ( $i < $n ) {
$numstring = int( rand( 4 ) ) . $numstring; # generate a new random integer
# between 0 and 3, and concatenate
# it with the existing $numstring,
# assigning the result to $numstring.
$i++; # increase the value of $i by one.
}
$dnastring = $numstring;
$dnastring =~ tr/0123/actg/; # translate the numbers to DNA characters.
#print $dnastring;
#print "\n";
$largearray[j] = $dnastring; #append generated string to end of array
#print $largearray[j];
#print $j;
#IN HERE THERE ARE GOOD ARRAY VALUES
#print "\n";
$j++;
}
# ii will be used to continuously take the next couple of strings from largearray
# for LCS matching.
$mytotal = 0;
$ii = 0;
while ( $ii < $numstrings ) {
$line = $largearray[ii];
print $largearray[ii]; #CANNOT RETRIEVE ARRAY VALUES
print "\n";
$ii++;
#string1 = split( //, $line );
$line = $largearray[ii];
#print $largearray[ii];
#print "\n";
$ii++;
chomp $line;
#string2 = split( //, $line );
$n = #string1; #assigning a list to a scalar just assigns the
#number of elements in the list to the scalar.
$m = #string2;
$v = 1;
$Cm = 0;
$Im = 0;
$V[0][0] = 0; # Assign the 0,0 entry of the V matrix
for ( $i = 1; $i <= $n; $i++ ) { # Assign the column 0 values and print
# String 1 See section 5.2 of Johnson
# for loops
$V[$i][0] = -$Im * $i;
}
for ( $j = 1; $j <= $m; $j++ ) { # Assign the row 0 values and print String 2
$V[0][$j] = -$Im * $j;
}
for ( $i = 1; $i <= $n; $i++ ) { # follow the recurrences to fill in the V matrix.
for ( $j = 1; $j <= $m; $j++ ) {
# print OUT "$string1[$i-1], $string2[$j-1]\n"; # This is here for debugging purposes.
if ( $string1[ $i - 1 ] eq $string2[ $j - 1 ] ) {
$t = 1 * $v;
}
else {
$t = -1 * $Cm;
}
$max = $V[ $i - 1 ][ $j - 1 ] + $t;
# print OUT "For $i, $j, t is $t \n"; # Another debugging line.
if ( $max < $V[$i][ $j - 1 ] - 1 * $Im ) {
$max = $V[$i][ $j - 1 ] - 1 * $Im;
}
if ( $V[ $i - 1 ][$j] - 1 * $Im > $max ) {
$max = $V[ $i - 1 ][$j] - 1 * $Im;
}
$V[$i][$j] = $max;
}
} #outer for loop
print $V[$n][$m];
$mytotal += $V[$n][$m]; # append current result to the grand total
print "\n";
} # end while loop
print "the average LCS value for length ", $mylong, " strings is: ";
print $mytotal/ $numstrings;
This isn't a scoping issue. You have declared none of your variables, which has the effect of implicitly making them all global and accessible everywhere in your code
I reformatted your Perl program so that I could read it, and then added this to the top of your program
use strict;
use warnings 'all';
which are essential in every Perl program you write
Then I added
no strict 'vars';
which is a very bad idea, and lets you get away without declaring any variables
The result is this
Argument "ii" isn't numeric in array element at E:\Perl\source\dna.pl line 60.
Argument "ii" isn't numeric in array element at E:\Perl\source\dna.pl line 61.
Argument "ii" isn't numeric in array element at E:\Perl\source\dna.pl line 67.
Argument "j" isn't numeric in array element at E:\Perl\source\dna.pl line 42.
Bareword "ii" not allowed while "strict subs" in use at E:\Perl\source\dna.pl line 60.
Bareword "ii" not allowed while "strict subs" in use at E:\Perl\source\dna.pl line 61.
Bareword "ii" not allowed while "strict subs" in use at E:\Perl\source\dna.pl line 67.
Bareword "j" not allowed while "strict subs" in use at E:\Perl\source\dna.pl line 42.
Execution of E:\Perl\source\dna.pl aborted due to compilation errors.
Line 42 (of my reformatted version) is
$largearray[j] = $dnastring
and lines 60, 61 and 67 are
$line = $largearray[ii];
print $largearray[ii]; #CANNOT RETRIEVE ARRAY VALUES
and
$line = $largearray[ii];
You are using j and ii as array indexes. Those are Perl subroutine calls, not variables. Adding use strict would have stopped this from compiling unless you had also declared sub ii and sub j
You might get away with it if you just change j and ii to $j and $ii, but you are certain to get into further problems
Please make the same changes to your own code, and declare every variable that you need using my as close as possible to the first place they are used
You should also improve your variable naming. Things like #largearray are pointless: the # says that it's an array, and whether it's large or not is relative, and of little use in understanding your code. If you have no better description of its purpose then #table or #data are probably a little better
Likewise, please avoid capital letters and most single-letter names. #V, $Cm and $Im are meaningless, and you would need fewer comments if those names were better
You certainly wouldn't need comments like # end while loop and # outer for loop if you had indented your blocks properly and kept them short enough so that both the beginning and the end can be seen on the screen at the same time, and the fewer comments you can get away with the better, because they badly clutter the code structure
Finally, it's worth noting that the C-style for loop is rarely the best choice in Perl. Your
for ( $i = 1; $i <= $n; $i++ ) { ... }
is much clearer as
for my $i ( 1 .. $n ) { ... }
and declaring the control variable at that point makes it unnecessary to invent new names like $ii for each new loop
I think you have a typo in your code:
ii => must be $ii
don't forget to put this at the beginning of your code:
use strict;
use warnings;
in order to avoid this (and others) kind of errors

How to tell if a string can be transformed into another string by removing or uppercasing lowercase letters?

In perl, I have two input strings, for this example, ahueFFggLKy and HFFGLK. I want to be able to iterate through all of the possible combinations of my input without lowercase letter groups (a, h, u, e, g...ah, au...hegy, etc) so in each iteration lowercase letters are removed and the remaining lowercase letters are uppercased:
ah:
ueFFggLKy (UEFFGGLKY)
^^
au:
h eFFggLKy (HEFFGGLKY)
^ ^
hegy:
a u FF gLKy | a u FFg LKy (AUFFGLKY)
^ ^ ^ | ^ ^ ^
auegy:
h FF gLK | h FFg LK (HFFGLK)
^ ^^ ^ ^ ^ ^^ ^ ^ -^--^-
The last option (auegy) is the answer, and I want to be able to iterate over letters to determine if I am able to convert ahueFFggLKy to HFFGLK without modifying any of the capital letters. This example would return "YES".
If inputs like fOoBar and BAR come up, I am not successfully able to convert fOoBar to BAR because the O in fOoBar is capitalized. My program would return "NO".
Can someone provide me with a perl example of how this would be done?
I think I have understood your requirement: the first string may be transformed by either deleting or upper-casing any lower-case letter, and you wish to know whether the second string can be derived from the first in this way
I suggest that you can transform the second string to a regex pattern to achieve this. If every upper-case letter in the second string must be matched by the corresponding upper or lower-case letter in the first, with any number of intervening lower-case letters, then the transformation is possible. Otherwise it is not
This program implements the idea
use strict;
use warnings 'all';
use feature 'say';
my #pairs = (
[ qw/ ahueFFggLKy HFFGLK / ],
[ qw/ fOoBar BAR / ],
);
for my $pair ( #pairs ) {
my ($s1, $s2) = #$pair;
printf "%s => %s -- %s\n", $s1, $s2, contains($s1, $s2) ? 'YES' : 'NO';
}
sub contains {
my ($s1, $s2) = #_;
my $re = join ' \p{Ll}* ', map { "(?i: $_ )" } $s2 =~ /\p{Lu}/g;
$re = qr/ ^ \p{Ll}* $re \p{Ll}* $ /x;
$s1 =~ $re;
}
output
ahueFFggLKy => HFFGLK -- YES
fOoBar => BAR -- NO
To read an array like #pairs from STDIN you could write something like this
my #pairs;
{
local $/;
my #input = split ' ', <>;
push #pairs, [ splice #input, 0, 2 ] while #input > 1;
}
Kind of unelegant solution, but it seems to output what you need.
#!/usr/bin/perl
use warnings;
use strict;
use List::Util qw{ all };
my ($str1, $str2) = qw( ahueFFggLKy HFFGLK );
my #small_indices;
push #small_indices, pos($str1) - 1 while $str1 =~ /[[:lower:]]/g;
my #present = (0) x #small_indices;
until (all { $_ } #present) {
my $try = $str1;
for my $i (reverse 0 .. $#present) {
substr $try, $small_indices[$i], 1,
$present[$i] ? substr $str1, $small_indices[$i], 1
: q();
}
if (uc $try eq $str2) {
print $present[$_] ? q() : substr $str1, $small_indices[$_], 1
for 0 .. $#present;
print ":\n";
my $j = 0;
for my $i (0 .. length($str1) - 1) {
my $char = substr $str1, $i, 1;
if ($char eq uc $char || $present[$j++]) {
print $char;
} else {
print '.';
}
}
print "\n";
}
my $idx = 0;
$present[$idx] = 0, ++$idx while $present[$idx];
$present[$idx] = 1;
}
It builds an indicator function #present, which say what lowercase letters are present in the string. All possible values of #present are iterated by adding 1 to the binary number corresponding to the function.

Splitting and tallying substrings within mixed integer-string data

Input Data (example):
40A3B35A3C
30A5B28A2C2B
Desired output (per-line) is a single number determined by the composition of the code 40A3B35A3C and the following rules:
if A - add the proceeding number to the running total
if B - add the proceeding number to the running total
if C - subtract the proceeding number from the running total
40A 3B 35A 3C would thus produce 40 + 3 + 35 - 3 = 75.
Output from both lines:
75
63
Is there an efficient way to achieve this for a particular column (such as $F[2]) in a tab-delimited .txt file using a one-liner? I have considered splitting the entire code into individual characters, then performing if statement checks to detect A/B/C, but my Perl knowledge is limited and I am unsure how to go about this.
When you use split with a capture, the captured group is returned from split, too.
perl -lane '
#ar = split /([ABC])/, $F[2];
$s = 0;
$s += $n * ("C" eq $op ? -1 : 1) while ($n, $op) = splice #ar, 0, 2;
print $s
' < input
Or maybe more declarative:
BEGIN { %one = ( A => 1,
B => 1,
C => -1 ) }
#ar = split /([ABC])/, $F[2];
$s = 0;
$s += $n * $one{$op} while ($n, $op) = splice #ar, 0, 2;
print $s
When working through a string like this, it's useful to know that regular expressions can return a list of results.
E.g.
my #matches = $str =~ m/(\d+[A-C])/g; #will catch repeated instances
So you can do something like this:
#!/usr/bin/env perl
use strict;
use warnings;
while (<DATA>) {
my $total;
#break the string into digit+letter groups.
for (m/(\d+[A-C])/g) {
#separate out this group into num and code.
my ( $num, $code ) = m/(\d+)([A-C])/;
print "\t",$num, " => ", $code, "\n";
if ( $code eq "C" ) {
$total -= $num;
}
else {
$total += $num;
}
}
print $total, " => ", $_;
}
__DATA__
40A3B35A3C
30A5B28A2C2B
perl -lne 'push #a,/([\d]+)[AB]/g;
push #b,/([\d]+)[C]/g;
$sum+=$_ for(#a);$sum-=$_ for(#b);
print $sum;#a=#b=();undef $sum' Your_file
how it works
use the command line arg as the input
set the hash "%op" to the
operations per letter
substitute the letters for operators in the
input evaluate the substituted input as an expression
use strict;
use warnings;
my %op=qw(A + B + C -);
$ARGV[0] =~ s/(\d+)(A|B|C)/$op{$2} $1/g;
print eval($ARGV[0]);

Perl printf to use commas as thousands-separator

Using awk, I can print a number with commas as thousands separators.
(with a export LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8 beforehand).
awk 'BEGIN{printf("%\047d\n", 24500)}'
24,500
I expected the same format to work with Perl, but it does not:
perl -e 'printf("%\047d\n", 24500)'
%'d
The Perl Cookbook offers this solution:
sub commify {
my $text = reverse $_[0];
$text =~ s/(\d\d\d)(?=\d)(?!\d*\.)/$1,/g;
return scalar reverse $text;
}
However I am assuming that since the printf option works in awk, it should also work in Perl.
The apostrophe format modifier is a non-standard POSIX extension.
The documentation for Perl's printf has this to say about such extensions
Perl does its own "sprintf" formatting: it emulates the C
function sprintf(3), but doesn't use it except for
floating-point numbers, and even then only standard modifiers
are allowed. Non-standard extensions in your local sprintf(3)
are therefore unavailable from Perl.
The Number::Format module will do this for you, and it takes its default settings from the locale, so is as portable as it can be
use strict;
use warnings 'all';
use v5.10.1;
use Number::Format 'format_number';
say format_number(24500);
output
24,500
A more perl-ish solution:
$a = 12345678; # no comment
$b = reverse $a; # $b = '87654321';
#c = unpack("(A3)*", $b); # $c = ('876', '543', '21');
$d = join ',', #c; # $d = '876,543,21';
$e = reverse $d; # $e = '12,345,678';
print $e;
outputs 12,345,678.
I realize this question was from almost 4 years ago, but since it comes up in searches, I'll add an elegant native Perl solution I came up with. I was originally searching for a way to do it with sprintf, but everything I've found indicates that it can't be done. Then since everyone is rolling their own, I thought I'd give it a go, and this is my solution.
$num = 12345678912345; # however many digits you want
while($num =~ s/(\d+)(\d\d\d)/$1\,$2/){};
print $num;
Results in:
12,345,678,912,345
Explanation:
The Regex does a maximal digit search for all leading digits. The minimum number of digits in a row it'll act on is 4 (1 plus 3). Then it adds a comma between the two. Next loop if there are still 4 digits at the end (before the comma), it'll add another comma and so on until the pattern doesn't match.
If you need something safe for use with more than 3 digits after the decimal, use this modification: (Note: This won't work if your number has no decimal)
while($num =~ s/(\d+)(\d\d\d)([.,])/$1\,$2$3/){};
This will ensure that it will only look for digits that ends in a comma (added on a previous loop) or a decimal.
Most of these answers assume that the format is universal. It isn't. CLDR uses Unicode information to figure it out. There's a long thread in How to properly localize numbers?.
CPAN has the CLDR::Number module:
#!perl
use v5.10;
use CLDR::Number;
use open qw(:std :utf8);
my $locale = $ARGV[0] // 'en';
my #numbers = qw(
123
12345
1234.56
-90120
);
my $cldr = CLDR::Number->new( locale => $locale );
my $decf = $cldr->decimal_formatter;
foreach my $n ( #numbers ) {
say $decf->format($n);
}
Here are a few runs:
$ perl comma.pl
123
12,345
1,234.56
-90,120
$ perl comma.pl es
123
12.345
1234,56
-90.120
$ perl comma.pl bn
১২৩
১২,৩৪৫
১,২৩৪.৫৬
-৯০,১২০
It seems heavyweight, but the output is correct and you don't have to allow the user to change the locale you want to use. However, when it's time to change the locale, you are ready to go. I also prefer this to Number::Format because I can use a locale that's different from my local settings for my terminal or session, or even use multiple locales:
#!perl
use v5.10;
use CLDR::Number;
use open qw(:std :utf8);
my #locales = qw( en pt bn );
my #numbers = qw(
123
12345
1234.56
-90120
);
my #formatters = map {
my $cldr = CLDR::Number->new( locale => $_ );
my $decf = $cldr->decimal_formatter;
[ $_, $cldr, $decf ];
} #locales;
printf "%10s %10s %10s\n" . '=' x 32 . "\n", #locales;
foreach my $n ( #numbers ) {
printf "%10s %10s %10s\n",
map { $_->[-1]->format($n) } #formatters;
}
The output has three locales at once:
en pt bn
================================
123 123 ১২৩
12,345 12.345 ১২,৩৪৫
1,234.56 1.234,56 ১,২৩৪.৫৬
-90,120 -90.120 -৯০,১২০
Here's an elegant Perl solution I've been using for over 20 years :)
1 while $text =~ s/(.*\d)(\d\d\d)/$1\.$2/g;
And if you then want two decimal places:
$text = sprintf("%0.2f", $text);
1 liner: Use a little loop whith a regex:
while ($number =~ s/^(\d+)(\d{3})/$1,$2/) {}
Example:
use strict;
use warnings;
my #numbers = (12321, 12.12, 122222.3334, '1234abc', '1.1', '1222333444555,666.77');
for(#numbers) {
my $number = $_;
while ($number =~ s/^(\d+)(\d{3})/$1,$2/) {}
print "$_ -> $number\n";
}
Output:
12321 -> 12,321
12.12 -> 12.12
122222.3334 -> 122,222.3334
1234abc -> 1,234abc
1.1 -> 1.1
1222333444555,666.77 -> 1,222,333,444,555,666.77
Pattern:
(\d+)(\d{3})
-> Take all numbers but the last 3 in group 1
-> Take the remaining 3 numbers in group2 on the beginning of $number
-> Followed is ignored
Substitution
$1,$2
-> Put a seperator sign (,) between group 1 and 2
-> The rest remains unchanged
So if you have 12345.67 the numers the regex uses are 12345. The '.' and all followed is ignored.
1. run (12345.67):
-> matches: 12345
-> group 1: 12,
group 2: 345
-> substitute 12,345
-> result: 12,345.67
2. run (12,345.67):
-> does not match!
-> while breaks.
Parting from #Laura's answer, I tweaked the pure perl, regex-only solution to work for numbers with decimals too:
while ($formatted_number =~ s/^(-?\d+)(\d{3}(?:,\d{3})*(?:\.\d+)*)$/$1,$2/) {};
Of course this assumes a "," as thousands separator and a "." as decimal separator, but it should be trivial to use variables to account for that for your given locale(s).
I used the following but it does not works as of perl v5.26.1
sub format_int
{
my $num = shift;
return reverse(join(",",unpack("(A3)*", reverse int($num))));
}
The form that worked for me was:
sub format_int
{
my $num = shift;
return scalar reverse(join(",",unpack("(A3)*", reverse int($num))));
}
But to use negative numbers the code must be:
sub format_int
{
if ( $val >= 0 ) {
return scalar reverse join ",", unpack( "(A3)*", reverse int($val) );
} else {
return "-" . scalar reverse join ",", unpack( "(A3)*", reverse int(-$val) );
}
}
Did somebody say Perl?
perl -pe '1while s/(\d+)(\d{3})/$1,$2/'
This works for any integer.
# turning above answer into a function
sub format_float
# returns number with commas..... and 2 digit decimal
# so format_float(12345.667) returns "12,345.67"
{
my $num = shift;
return reverse(join(",",unpack("(A3)*", reverse int($num)))) . sprintf(".%02d",int(100*(.005+($num - int($num)))));
}
sub format_int
# returns number with commas.....
# so format_int(12345.667) returns "12,345"
{
my $num = shift;
return reverse(join(",",unpack("(A3)*", reverse int($num))));
}
I wanted to print numbers it in a currency format. If it turned out even, I still wanted a .00 at the end. I used the previous example (ty) and diddled with it a bit more to get this.
sub format_number {
my $num = shift;
my $result;
my $formatted_num = "";
my #temp_array = ();
my $mantissa = "";
if ( $num =~ /\./ ) {
$num = sprintf("%0.02f",$num);
($num,$mantissa) = split(/\./,$num);
$formatted_num = reverse $num;
#temp_array = unpack("(A3)*" , $formatted_num);
$formatted_num = reverse (join ',', #temp_array);
$result = $formatted_num . '.'. $mantissa;
} else {
$formatted_num = reverse $num;
#temp_array = unpack("(A3)*" , $formatted_num);
$formatted_num = reverse (join ',', #temp_array);
$result = $formatted_num . '.00';
}
return $result;
}
# Example call
# ...
printf("some amount = %s\n",format_number $some_amount);
I didn't have the Number library on my default mac OS X perl, and I didn't want to mess with that version or go off installing my own perl on this machine. I guess I would have used the formatter module otherwise.
I still don't actually like the solution all that much, but it does work.
This is good for money, just keep adding lines if you handle hundreds of millions.
sub commify{
my $var = $_[0];
#print "COMMIFY got $var\n"; #DEBUG
$var =~ s/(^\d{1,3})(\d{3})(\.\d\d)$/$1,$2$3/;
$var =~ s/(^\d{1,3})(\d{3})(\d{3})(\.\d\d)$/$1,$2,$3$4/;
$var =~ s/(^\d{1,3})(\d{3})(\d{3})(\d{3})(\.\d\d)$/$1,$2,$3,$4$5/;
$var =~ s/(^\d{1,3})(\d{3})(\d{3})(\d{3})(\d{3})(\.\d\d)$/$1,$2,$3,$4,$5$6/;
#print "COMMIFY made $var\n"; #DEBUG
return $var;
}
A solution that produces a localized output:
# First part - Localization
my ( $thousands_sep, $decimal_point, $negative_sign );
BEGIN {
my ( $l );
use POSIX qw(locale_h);
$l = localeconv();
$thousands_sep = $l->{ 'thousands_sep' };
$decimal_point = $l->{ 'decimal_point' };
$negative_sign = $l->{ 'negative_sign' };
}
# Second part - Number transformation
sub readable_number {
my $val = shift;
#my $thousands_sep = ".";
#my $decimal_point = ",";
#my $negative_sign = "-";
sub _readable_int {
my $val = shift;
# a pinch of PERL magic
return scalar reverse join $thousands_sep, unpack( "(A3)*", reverse $val );
}
my ( $i, $d, $r );
$i = int( $val );
if ( $val >= 0 ) {
$r = _readable_int( $i );
} else {
$r = $negative_sign . _readable_int( -$i );
}
# If there is decimal part append it to the integer result
if ( $val != $i ) {
( undef, $d ) = ( $val =~ /(\d*)\.(\d*)/ );
$r = $r . $decimal_point . $d;
}
return $r;
}
The first part gets the symbols used in the current locale to be used on the second part.
The BEGIN block is used to calculate the sysmbols only once at the beginning.
If for some reason there is need to not use POSIX locale, one can ommit the first part and uncomment the variables on the second part to hardcode the sysmbols to be used ($thousands_sep, $thousands_sep and $thousands_sep)

Misunderstanding of incrementation

In Perl, I have this following code:
my $val = "0";
for(my $z = 0; $z <= 14; $z++)
{
++$val;
if($val == 9) {
$val = "A";
}
print $val;
}
it prints:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 A B 1 2 3 4 5
yet it's supposed to continue from B to C, from C to D and so on, what is the logic behind this?
warnings would have given you a warning message like:
Argument "B" isn't numeric in numeric eq (==)
use warnings;
use strict;
my $val = "0";
for(my $z = 0; $z <= 14; $z++)
{
++$val;
if($val eq '9') { # <------------------
$val = "A";
}
print $val;
}
To quote perlop:
If you increment a variable that is numeric, or that has ever been used in a numeric context, you get a normal increment. If, however, the variable has been used in only string contexts since it was set, and has a value that is not the empty string and matches the pattern /^[a-zA-Z]*[0-9]*\z/, the increment is done as a string, preserving each character within its range, with carry... (emphasis added)
$val == 9 is a numeric context. So it prints A (you just set it), and then you get the magic increment to B (it hasn't been used in a numeric context yet), but then you hit the == (using it in a numeric context), so when you get to ++$val again B is treated as a number (0) and increments to 1.
You could use eq to make a string comparison, thus preserving the magic increment, but you could also just say:
print 1 .. 8, 'A' .. 'F';