help with regex

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

Hello Forks, Please i want to remove one if there is // in file path prefix.

$test = "//user/";
$test =~ s/^\///;
print $test."\n";
[download]

the problem is the $test could be /user/ then i will have user/ which is not what i want to see happen.
thank you for your help.

The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand.
Frank Herbert (1920 - 1986)

Comment on help with regex Download Code

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Re: help with regex by choroba (Cardinal) on Mar 08, 2016 at 23:04 UTC
You don't want to remove a slash, you want to replace two slashes by a single one. Use a different delimiter to avoid the need of backslashing: `$test =~ s{^//}{/};` [download] ($q=q:Sq=~/;[c](.)(.)/;chr(-\|\|-\|5+lengthSq)`"S\|oS2"`map{chr \|+ord }map{substrSq`S_+\|`\|}3E\|-\|`7**2-3:)=~y+S\|`+$1,++print+eval$q,q,a, [download]	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: help with regex by ExReg (Priest) on Mar 08, 2016 at 23:35 UTC
Or, expanding on what choroba said, `$test =~ s{^/+}{/};` if, for some perverse reason, you have more than two //, like `$test = "////user/";`	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: help with regex by Your Mother (Archbishop) on Mar 09, 2016 at 00:34 UTC
It's probably a nice addition but I find regexes that can work while leaving the original unmodified irksome. `$test =~ s{^/+}{/}` will work on `/something` and leave it identical. I would rather see `$test =~ s{^//+}{/};` so the intent is clear and action is only taken when necessary.	[reply] [d/l] [select]