in reply to should this backspace removal code be done better?

If you don't have two backspaces in a row, this quick and dirty will do it:

$_ = "this is an\b correct usage";
s/.[\b]//g;
print;

[download]

Note that \b is a word boundary within a regex but a backspace within a character class.

For a more correct solution, see the Unix col command or col for PPT. See also Removing characters.

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Re: should this backspace removal code be done better?
by smackdab (Pilgrim) on Oct 05, 2003 at 06:35 UTC
    Make sense, if only you could tell the regex engine to work left to right it would work...I can't assume the user wont hit a backspace twice...I dit it about 6 times typing this reply ;-)
[reply]
      Out of the mouths of dab'es ! Isn't this a 'sexeger' situation?

      Maybe someone should check my results, 'cuz I can't believe that adding in the reverse's doesn't impact these timings more.   I added a different routine to the mix benchmarked by antirice: 

      sub badkcams {
  $a = reverse $s;
  $a =~ s[\cH[^\cH]|\cH$][]g  while  1+index $a, chr(8);
  reverse $a;
}

      [download]
      I then ran the benchmark again: 
                 Rate    smack     new1       uk badkcams
smack     191/s       --     -96%     -97%     -97%
new1     5063/s    2547%       --      -7%     -25%
uk       5469/s    2759%       8%       --     -19%
badkcams 6715/s    3411%      33%      23%       --
           Rate    smack     new1       uk badkcams
smack    42.4/s       --     -22%     -30%     -44%
new1     54.7/s      29%       --      -9%     -27%
uk       60.2/s      42%      10%       --     -20%
badkcams 75.3/s      78%      38%      25%       --
      Am I reading this right?   It's faster?!?
      (This is Perl 5.8.0 AS build 806 running on WinXP.)
[reply]
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