Substitution question

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

Frequently I find that I want to create a variable that resembles a currently existing variable but with a substitution applied. Invariably, this is the way I do it:

$ExistingVariable = "SuperMan";
$NewVariable = $ExistingVariable;
$NewVariable=~s/^Super//;
[download]

Is there a way to say something like $NewVariable eq whatever $ExistingVariable would be if I applied s/^Super// to it? Does that make sense? Does this have to take up three lines or can I do it in one?

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Re: Substitution question by broquaint (Abbot) on Apr 14, 2003 at 15:05 UTC
Is there a way to say something like `$NewVariable eq whatever $ExistingVariable` would be if I applied `s/^Super//` to it? But of course `my $str1 = "SuperMan"; print $str1, $/; (my $str2 = $str1) =~ s{^Super}(); print $str2, $/; __output__ SuperMan Man` [download] HTH `_________ broquaint`	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Substitution question by Abigail-II (Bishop) on Apr 14, 2003 at 15:08 UTC
I don't see what's so bad in writing in in three lines, but you could also write like this: `($new = $old = "SuperMan") =~ s/^Super//;` [download] Of course, this mostly boils down your three lines with the newlines and some other bits taken out. Abigail	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Substitution question by Anonymous Monk on Apr 14, 2003 at 15:11 UTC
Wow. Thanks. That's cool. There's a bit that I don't quite understand, though. `s{^Super}.()` [download] I understand that one can use something other than / to delimit a substitution `s/this/that/ or s!this!that!` [download] but what is the () there on the end?	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Re: Substitution question by broquaint (Abbot) on Apr 14, 2003 at 15:21 UTC
but what is the () there on the end? You can use also use balanced character delimiters. See. the Quote and Quote-like Operators of `perlop` for more info. HTH `_________ broquaint`	[reply]