in reply to finding commas within commas

All that can be said for this solution is that it works on your test string. Beyond that? 

my $str = q["2","T,E,S,T,B","Lazowsky","Mike's","Teststring"];
$str =~ s< \s* ( \"[^\"]+ \" \s* ) (,|$) > 
         < (local $a = $1) =~ tr/,//d;  $a . $2 ; >gex; #!"
print $str;
__END__
#Output
C:\test>229505
"2","TESTB","Lazowsky","Mike's","Teststring"

C:\test>

[download]

Update: Corrected error that LAI++ spotted.

That said, Text::CSV is almost certainly better.

Examine what is said, not who speaks.

The 7th Rule of perl club is -- pearl clubs are easily damaged. Use a diamond club instead.

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^2: finding commas within commas
by LAI (Hermit) on Jan 24, 2003 at 14:15 UTC

    Actually, this breaks if there are commas in the last field. Since you're checking for commas at the end of the field a string like q["2","T,E,S,T,B","Lazowsky","Mike's","Test,string"] will not have the comma in "Test,string" removed.

    Update: BrowserUk++ fixed this. And yes, Text::CSV is a good idea.


    LAI
    :eof
[reply]
[d/l]
Re: Re: finding commas within commas
by Anonymous Monk on Jan 24, 2003 at 01:56 UTC
    thanks, that seemed to work for me. I was wondering if you could elaborate on how that code works...i'm not too clear on how the code works exactly...
    thanks once again
[reply]

      Sure. Essentially, this is just a s/// operator. I've used angle brackets instead of slashes as the delimiter. 

      $str =~ s< 
           (           # Start capturing (to $1)
             \s*       # Optional whitespace (forgot this before)
             \"        # starting with a quote
             [^\"]+    # 1 more of anything except a quote
             \"        # another quote
             \s*       # optional white space
           )           # end capture
           (,|$)       # capture comma seperator (or EOL*)
         >
         <  # /e option makes this becomes a code block
            # put the contents of $1 into a localised writable var
            #($1 is read only!)
            # and use the tr/// op to  remove the commas
            (local $a = $1) =~ tr/,//d;  
            # The last expression in the block is used as the 
            # replacement expression, so we put the decomma'd localise
+d var here.
            # not forgetting to put back the final comma
            # If it was there*
             $a .$2 ; 
         >gex; #!" Global, Execute, ignore whitespace in regex

      [download]

      The weird comment (#!") I forgot to remove, is just used to keep the syntax parser in my editor happy. Sorry for any confusion it caused.

      Update* Added to correct error spotted by LAI. Use Text::CSV instead.

      Examine what is said, not who speaks.

      The 7th Rule of perl club is -- pearl clubs are easily damaged. Use a diamond club instead.

[reply]
[d/l]

In Section Seekers of Perl Wisdom