Re: Counting the number of items returned by split without using a named array

Why not just count the instances of whitespace?

my $str = "this is a test string";
my $cnt = 1;                        # num tokens = whitespace + 1

++$cnt while $str =~ /\s+/g;
print $cnt, "\n";                   # prints 5
[download]

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Comment on Re: Counting the number of items returned by split without using a named array Download Code

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Re^2: Counting the number of items returned by split without using a named array by blazar (Canon) on May 03, 2006 at 11:07 UTC
The `=()=` does work with matches: `$ perl -lpe '($_=()=/\s+/g)++' foo 1 bar baz 2 foo bar baz 3` [download] But I would use split, especially with the smart behaviour provided by the default `' '` argument.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^3: Counting the number of items returned by split without using a named array by Hue-Bond (Priest) on May 03, 2006 at 13:38 UTC
That fails when input has leading or trailing blanks: `$ perl -lpe '($_=()=/\s+/g)++' ## leading foo bar 3 $ perl -lpe '($_=()=/\s+/g)++' ## trailing foo bar 3 $ perl -lpe '($_=()=/\s+/g)++' ## both foo bar 4 $ _` [download] It's better to count ocurrences of actual elements (`\S+`): `$ perl -wle 'print scalar (()=/\S+/g) for "a b c", " a b c", "a b c ", + " a b c "' 3 3 3 3 $ _` [download] Anyway I prefer split too, like salva++'s 0e0 solution. -- David Serrano	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^4: Counting the number of items returned by split without using a named array by blazar (Canon) on May 03, 2006 at 13:47 UTC
I know. My entire point was not to maintain a counter manually a' la `++$cnt while $str =~ /\s+/g;` [download] Well done to point out about `\S` anyway, since one often forgets about `\S`, `\D` and `\W`.	[reply] [d/l] [select]


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