matching whole words only

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

Hi Monks, i'm hoping there is a better way to check for my value from an Array of hashes. The flaw in the sample code is that i'm grepping through the values for the word SWIM and in the values is the word SWIMMING so it thinks there was a match. Is there a way to tweak it so it only finds an exact match in this scenario?

#!/usr/bin/env perl
use warnings;
use strict;
use Data::Dumper;

my $state= 'OHIO';
my %region_of_state;
my @events;

while (<DATA>) {
        chomp;
        next if /^\s*$/ || /^\#/;
        my $aref = [split /,/, $_];

        foreach ($aref->[2]) {
        print "event = $_\n";
        print "region = $aref->[1]\n";
        push( @{$region_of_state{$aref->[1]}}, $_) if ($aref->[0] eq $
+state);
        }
    }

my $event = 'SWIM';
my $region_of_state = 'NE';
if (@events = grep /$event/, @{ $region_of_state{$region_of_state}}) {
        print "Found a match\n";
} else {
        print "No Match\n";
}
#print Dumper(\@events);
#print "@events\n";

__DATA__
OHIO,NE,SWIMMING SWIMMER CLOCK
OHIO,SW,BASEBALL PLAYER BATTER
[download]

Any help is greatly appreciated. DD

Comment on matching whole words only Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: matching whole words only by kennethk (Abbot) on Feb 26, 2015 at 21:48 UTC
The easiest solution is to use word boundaries: `if (@events = grep /\b$event\b/, @{ $region_of_state{$region_of_state} +}) {` [download] Given your approach, you might also want to add quotemeta support: `if (@events = grep /\b\Q$event\E\b/, @{ $region_of_state{$region_of_st +ate}}) {` [download] #11929 First ask yourself `How would I do this without a computer?' Then have the computer do it the same way.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: matching whole words only by dirtdog (Monk) on Feb 27, 2015 at 16:02 UTC
bounderies worked like a charm. Thank you!	[reply]
Re: matching whole words only by LanX (Saint) on Feb 26, 2015 at 21:50 UTC
Better Title? try `/^SWIM$/` update I've been messaged that I misread your question, so I read it again and must admit you miswrote the question. For me its not clear what you really want, hence I shouldn't have answered at all, sorry ;) Cheers Rolf _{(addicted to the Perl Programming Language and ☆☆☆☆ :)} PS: Je suis Charlie! update Original title was "Better Way?" and was corrected after consideration.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: matching whole words only by toolic (Bishop) on Feb 26, 2015 at 21:48 UTC
I misread the question. Nothing to see here. Use eq instead of a regex. Change: `if (@events = grep /$event/, @{ $region_of_state{$region_of_state}}) {` [download] to: `if (@events = grep { $_ eq $event } @{ $region_of_state{$region_of_sta +te} }) {` [download]	[reply] [d/l] [select]

update

update