Re: regex replace a string

Here's a guess at something that might be a little like what you think you may need (requires Perl version 5.10 or greater):

c:\@Work\Perl\monks\OldChamp>perl -wMstrict -le
"use 5.010;
 ;;
 my %replacement = (
   'foo' => 'Black to move',
   'bar' => 'White to move',
   'zot' => 'Green to quit',
   );
 ;;
 my ($string2) =
   map  qr{ \b (?: $_) \b }xms,
   join ' | ',
   map  quotemeta,
   reverse sort
   keys %replacement
   ;
 print 'regex: ', $string2;
 ;;
 my $s = 'Event ? followed by some text and then foo';
 print qq{before: '$s'};
 ;;
 $s =~ s{ Event \s+ \K [?] (?= .*? ($string2)) }{$replacement{$1}}xms;
 print qq{after:  '$s'};
"
regex: (?msx-i: \b (?: zot | foo | bar) \b )
before: 'Event ? followed by some text and then foo'
after:  'Event Black to move followed by some text and then foo'
[download]

Please see perlre, perlretut, and perlrequick.

Update:

... a string2, which is spacebspace- or spacewspace-.

I don't understand what "spacebspace-" and "spacewspace-" are supposed to be. Please clarify, perhaps with an example string like
'Event ? followed by some text and then spacebspace-'
with spacebspace- replaced by a concrete example of whatever it might be.

Give a man a fish: <%-{-{-{-<

Comment on Re: regex replace a string Select or Download Code

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Re^2: regex replace a string by OldChamp (Acolyte) on Nov 04, 2017 at 17:45 UTC
The textfile contains text like this `[Event "?"] [Result ""] [SetUp "1"] [FEN "4b3/pq2p1k1/1p1pP2R/1P1P2K1/2rp4/8/P5Q1/8 w - - 0 50"] [PlyCount "0"] [Event "?"] [Round "39"] [Result ""] [SetUp "1"] [FEN "5rk1/5p1p/3q2p1/1Rp1n3/P3P3/3Pb1pP/2Q3B1/3R3K b - - 0 1"]` [download] I want to change `[Event "?"]` to `[Event "Black to move"]` if in the line `[FEN .... ]` I find a space, then `b` followed by another space and to change it to `[Event "White to move"]` if in the line `[FEN .... ]` I find a space, then `w` followed by another space I have tried to use lookahead, but as have not programmed anything in Perl for quite a while with no success. Sorry for beeing unclear 2017-11-07 Athanasius added code tags*	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^3: regex replace a string (updated) by AnomalousMonk (Archbishop) on Nov 05, 2017 at 04:06 UTC
I don't have time to post a tested solution to your post sharpening the confusing specifications of the OPed problem. Whenever I post untested stuff, there's usually a huge bug right in the middle of it, but anyway... The solution I posted here can fairly easily be adapted to your expanded, clarified specifications if you can load the entire file into memory at once, i.e., if the file is smaller than, say, a couple hundred MB (assuming your running on a bargain-basement laptop). I'm assuming you know how to "slurp" a file in this way and that it's been slurped into the `$s` scalar. Then, change the `%replacement` hash to `my %replacement = ( 'b' => 'Black to move', 'w' => 'White to move', );` [download] and change the `s///g` substitution to `$s =~ s{ Event \s+ " \K [?] (?= " .? FEN [^\n] \s+ ($string2) \s+ -) } {$replacement{$1}}xmsg;` [download] This assumes that: There can be any number, including zero, of lines between the `Event` and `FEN` lines, or they can be on the same line; `FEN` is always on the same line as the b/w business (update: but see Update below); `Event-FEN-b/w` sequences are never nested or interleaved; `Event-FEN-b/w` all match case-sensitively. After the `s///g` substitution, write the modified `$s` scalar out to a file. If you know for sure that the mapping in the `%replacement` hash will never change, you can get rid of the code building the `$string2` regex based on the hash and just define the regex as `my $string2 = qr{ \b (?: b \| w) \b }xms;` (although I hope you will give it a better name). Again, this untested code still needs Perl version 5.10+ regex extensions (although it could fairly easily be adapted to an earlier version), and it's untested. Update: On second thought, it seems to me that there's a possible problem with the `\s+ ($string2) \s+` sub-pattern of the `Event \s+ " \K [?] (?= " .? FEN [^\n] \s+ ($string2) \s+ -)` regex that I've suggested for the `s///` match. The `\s` class includes newline, so `\s+` could match a wild and crazy string like `"\t \n\t\n\n \t"` that is obviously not all one line as one of the assumptions stated above would have it. It may not make any practical difference, but I think I would rather use something like `[ \t]+` in place of `\s+` in the problematic sub-pattern, making it `[ \t]+ ($string2) [ \t]+` instead. Of course, the all-one-line assumption referred to may not actually be pertinent; in that case, no problem. Give a man a fish: `<%-{-{-{-<`	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^4: regex replace a string by OldChamp (Acolyte) on Nov 05, 2017 at 22:05 UTC
Thank you for your help Anomalous Monk, I have applied the substitions you proposed and every thing works fine `use strict; use warnings; my $text = do { local $/; <>; }; my %replacement = ( 'b' =>' Schwarz am Zug', 'w' => 'Weiß am Zug', ); ;; my $condition = qr{ \b (?: b \| w) \b }xms; $text =~ s{ Event \s+ " \K [?] (?= " .? FEN [^\n] \s+ ($condition) \s+ -) } {$replacement{$1}}xmsg; print $text;` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re^3: regex replace a string by davido (Cardinal) on Nov 04, 2017 at 19:09 UTC
Yes, still unclear. Please read Writeup Formatting Tips to understand how to wrap sample data in either `<code>...</code>` or `<pre>...</pre>` tags. What you posted this time is rendered without the constraints of those sorts of tags, and thus some of the specifics we're looking to understand are lost. Why is all your text showing as links? Dave	[reply] [d/l] [select]