split strangeness

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

I have come across a hurdle with some code I am currently writing and seek enlightenment from my fellow monks. I am wanting to set up a split statement to split a string based on either "," or "," - that is /,\s+/ and /\,/. I have attempted this with a split command thus:

my @array = split(/,(\s+|)/, $string);

The problem with this is that I seem to be getting an additional array field consisting of a single space - That is if $string is this@emailaddress.com, that@emailaddress.com, I have the following returned:

this@emailaddress.com
 
that@emailaddress.com
[download]

This is most obviously an syntax error on my part, but an explanation of my fault to further my understanding would be appreciated much more than an immediate code solution. I can post the full segment of code where I am having this issue if need be, but have trimmed the post to contain only the most relevant information - /msg me if more information is needed.

Many Thanks

Ooohhh, Rob no beer function well without!

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Re: split strangeness by kschwab (Vicar) on Sep 10, 2001 at 18:13 UTC
From "perldoc -f split": If the PATTERN contains parentheses, additional array elements are created from each matching substring in the delimiter. Perhaps split(/,\s{0,1}/,$string) would work for you ?, Update: I wasn't sure if you wanted to handle the comma and any amount of following spaces. split(/,\s*/,$string) if so.	[reply]
Re: split strangeness by Zaxo (Archbishop) on Sep 10, 2001 at 18:19 UTC
The problem with this is that I seem to be getting an additional array field consisting of a single space That is the effect of parens in a split re. Try this: `my @array = split(/,\s*/, $string);` After Compline, Zaxo	[reply] [d/l]
Re: split strangeness by suaveant (Parson) on Sep 10, 2001 at 18:19 UTC
`my @array = split(/,(\s+\|)/, $string); # change to my @array = split(/,(?:\s+\|)/, $string);` [download] to make the parens non-capturing Update Zaxo's is much better in practice... but if you ever do need grouping, (?: ) will not capture like ( ) will - Ant - Some of my best work - Fish Dinner	[reply] [d/l]