Sentances from arrays

IndyZ has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I have an array like:

@array = ("12 hours", "23 minutes", "17 seconds");
[download]

I am trying to turn this into an English sentence like "12 hours, 23 minutes, and 17 seconds" Not so tough right? The real problem is that I never know how many items are in the list. The best that I could come up with was:

$last = pop(@array);
$sentence = join ", ", @array;
$sentence .= "," if ($#array > 0);
$sentence .= " and " if ($#array > -1);
$sentence .= "$last";
[download]

This works for anything, except zero elements, which I check for earlier in the block.

I'm sure some of you wizards can see what I cannot. Any help is appreciated.

=IndyZ

Comment on Sentances from arrays Select or Download Code

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Re: Sentances from arrays by merlyn (Sage) on Nov 28, 2000 at 03:24 UTC
It's probably clearer if you just say what you mean: `$sentence = @array <= 0 ? "" : @array <= 1 ? $array[0] : @array <= 2 ? join(" and ", @array) : join(", ", @array[0..$#array-1], "and $array[-1]");` [download] That's clearer to me, and safe in case you delete or add a case. -- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Sentances from arrays by myocom (Deacon) on Nov 28, 2000 at 03:33 UTC
Here's what I use: `sub list_commify { if (@_ > 2) { join ", ", @_[0..$#_-1], " and $_[-1]" } elsif (@_ > 1) { "$_[0] and $_[1]" } elsif (@_ > 0) { $_[0] } else { "" } }` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Re: Sentances from arrays by IndyZ (Friar) on Nov 28, 2000 at 04:56 UTC
Personally, I don't like if's. In my mind, they make code harder to read by forcing you to think your way through them. While they are appropriate in other cases, in this case I believe merlyn is clearer. =IndyZ	[reply]
Re: Re: Re: Sentances from arrays by myocom (Deacon) on Nov 28, 2000 at 05:01 UTC
To each his own, natch. For me, at least, it's easier to parse the if's, since it's more English-like. I can parse it by reading it aloud. I find it harder to pronounce the `? :` version, though I appreciate its elegance.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Sentances from arrays by cwest (Friar) on Nov 28, 2000 at 05:40 UTC
`my $sentence = join @array > 2 ? ', ' : ' ', @array > 1 ? ( @array[0..$#array-1], 'and '.$array[-1] +) : @array;` [download] -- Casey I am a superhero.	[reply] [d/l]
(2501) Re: Sentances from arrays by 2501 (Pilgrim) on Nov 28, 2000 at 21:15 UTC
I couldn't help it...it looked like too much fun trying to crunch this code to its smallest form:P `use strict; my @foo = ("23 hours","22 minutes","21 seconds","20 miliseconds","0 na +noseconds"); my $final; $final?($final =pop(@foo).", $final"):($final =($#foo>1)?"and ".pop(@f +oo):pop(@foo)) until not @foo; print "$final\n";` [download] update: I removed an extra space in the output string and a wee mistake (it functioned correctly but it was useless code) from a previous attempt	[reply] [d/l]


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