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

Hi Experts, Please help me here. I need to take substring (/fold1/fold2/fold3/) out of following one. 

$str1="/fold1/fold2/fold3/file.pl"

  DB<48> p $str1
/fold1/fold2/fold3/file.pl
  DB<49> if ($str1 =~ m#([^/]+)$#) { print $1;}
file.pl  <<<< I managed to get my file name but need to get rest of th
+e path. 
  DB<50>

[download]

I need to print "/fold1/fold2/fold3/" in fact. what regexp will help me here? -Thanks, Vijesh

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: regex help
by McA (Priest) on Oct 20, 2014 at 07:11 UTC

    Hi,

    if you're interested in getting the directory part of a path name I would suggest using dirname from File::Basename.

    Regards
    McA

[reply]
[d/l]
[select]

      Hello McA,this is working for me..Thanks for support.

[reply]
Re: regex help
by Athanasius (Archbishop) on Oct 20, 2014 at 07:17 UTC

    Hello vijesh,

    McA is correct, when dealing with filenames and paths a dedicated module will provide a safer and more portable solution than a hand-written regex. But if you still want to use a regex, try this:

    17:12 >perl -wE "my $s = q{/fold1/fold2/fold3/file.pl}; print $1, qq{\
+n} if $s =~ m{^(.+?)[^/]+$};
/fold1/fold2/fold3/

17:16 >

    [download]

    This works because the second quantifier is greedy but the first is not.

    Hope that helps,

    Athanasius <°(((>< contra mundum Iustus alius egestas vitae, eros Piratica,

[reply]
[d/l]

      Hello Athanasius, Thanks for regex. As you said, McA's suggestion also helps. I shall go with Basename api's. -Thanks and Regds, Vijesh

[reply]
Re: regex help
by choroba (Cardinal) on Oct 20, 2014 at 10:04 UTC
    You can use Path::Tiny to solve most of the file and path related tasks. In this case: 
    use Path::Tiny;
my $str1 = "/fold1/fold2/fold3/file.pl";
print path($str1)->dirname, "\n";

    [download]
    لսႽ† ᥲᥒ⚪⟊Ⴙᘓᖇ Ꮅᘓᖇ⎱ Ⴙᥲ𝇋ƙᘓᖇ
[reply]
[d/l]

      wow.. this is a great help too. -Vijesh

[reply]

Back to Seekers of Perl Wisdom