Re: How to clean an array of strings after a split

Another approach depends on realizing that an expression like my ($var1, $var2, ...) = ...; yields a list that can be processed with a Perl-ish for-loop.

>perl -wMstrict -le
"my $str = 'a|  b||c  |  0  ';
 ;;
 $_ //= ''
   for my ($var1, $var2, $var3, $var4, $var5, $var6) =
     map Trim($_), split m{\|}xms, $str;
 ;;
 printf qq{'$_'  } for $var1, $var2, $var3, $var4, $var5, $var6;
 ;;
 sub Trim {
   $_[0] =~ s{ \A \s+ | \s+ \z }''xmsg;
   return $_[0];
   }
"
'a'  'b'  ''  'c'  '0'  ''
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Use defined or $_ = '' if you do not have the //= operator (Perl 5.10+). Also, 5.14+ offers the /r modifier for s/// substitutions, which allows a slight simplification of the Trim() function to
sub Trim { return $_[0] =~ s{ \A \s+ | \s+ \z }''xmsgr; }

Also:
... am I correct in thinking that ... the parts of the string that are split will always be defined?
Yes.

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Re^2: How to clean an array of strings after a split by MrSnrub (Beadle) on Aug 29, 2013 at 15:37 UTC
Thanks. I think I like this approach best because I don't need to concern myself with ensuring there are enough pipe symbols to suffice.	[reply]
Re^3: How to clean an array of strings after a split by AnomalousMonk (Archbishop) on Aug 29, 2013 at 20:26 UTC
Actually, if you used kcott's suggestion here and `split` into a named array, e.g. `my @fields = map { ... } split ..., $str;` you wouldn't have to worry about how many pipes there are and 'uninitialized' variables: you get what you get, it's all defined, and it's easy to test how much you've gotten by taking the size of the array and to iterate over the array. Rather than writing `$var``n` you write `$fields[``n``]` instead, but 0-based. But I assume you have your reasons for preferring individual named variables...	[reply] [d/l] [select]