Re: Help me write a good reg-exp for this text

Is the data of fixed width? If so, you're better off with unpack:

# @LIST_OF_ENTRIES contains your data, one line per element
my %description_hash;
foreach my $entry (@LIST_OF_ENTRIES) {
    # Replace 20 with the number of characters in the value portion
    my ($value, $name) = unpack('A20 A*', $entry);
    $value =~ s/\A\s*//;
    $value =~ s/\s*\z//;
    $description_hash($name} = $value;
}
[download]

----
I wanted to explore how Perl's closures can be manipulated, and ended up creating an object system by accident.
-- Schemer

Note: All code is untested, unless otherwise stated

Comment on Re: Help me write a good reg-exp for this text Select or Download Code

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Care to explain s/\A\s*//? by waxmop (Beadle) on Sep 05, 2003 at 16:59 UTC
Hi - Thanks for the help. I don't understand the \A in s/\A\s*// however. Can you explain it to me?	[reply]
Re: Care to explain s/\A\s*//? by halley (Prior) on Sep 05, 2003 at 17:22 UTC
`$ perldoc perlre` [download] The \A anchors the search at the beginning of the string. A ^ anchors a search at the beginning of the LINE in a string. Documentation is a wonderful thing. -- `[ e d @ h a l l e y . c c ]`	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Re: Care to explain s/\A\s*//? by bart (Canon) on Sep 05, 2003 at 17:46 UTC
I don't understand why you want to act in such an obscure manner, because without the /m modifier, as here, there is no difference between /^\s/ and /\A\s/. So you might just as well use the far more familiar form, with the caret. The difference between /\Z/, /\z/ and /$/ is far more significant. Well, I do agree with you on the RTFM part... it's all in there. Looking there should become a more natural response, than asking here. I'd prefer `s/^\s+//;` [download] anyway, as this wouldn't do an empty substitution if the string doesn't start with whitespace.	[reply] [d/l]