Re: regular expression (search and destroy)

Here are my 2 cents. This code would do what you are asking, but wouldn't handle other problems like a " in the quoted string.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

my $line = '121212, "Simpson, Bart", Springfield<br>';

print "Before: $line\n";

$line =~ s/"(.*?),(.*?)"/$1_$2/;

print "After: $line\n";
[download]

The output is:

Before: 121212, "Simpson, Bart", Springfield<br>
After: 121212, Simpson_ Bart, Springfield<br>
[download]

To explain, adding a ? after *, as in .*? causes minimal matching. It will match the first ", then as few characters as possible, then a comma, then more of the same until another " is found. It all gets replaced with the s///.

Comment on Re: regular expression (search and destroy) Select or Download Code

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Re: Re: regular expression (search and destroy) by sauoq (Abbot) on Nov 12, 2003 at 21:42 UTC
This code would do what you are asking It wouldn't really do what he is asking. It would just work on the example he gave. Consider other possible input... A CSV format generally defines an espape character, often either a doublequote or a backwack. There may be more than one quoted field. Etc. So, what would your code do to a line like: `42, "Simpson, Homer ""Mr. Donuts"", "Springfield"` [download] And how would you fix it? -sauoq "My two cents aren't worth a dime.";	[reply] [d/l]

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Re: Re: regular expression (search and destroy)
by sauoq (Abbot) on Nov 12, 2003 at 21:42 UTC

This code would do what you are asking

It wouldn't really do what he is asking. It would just work on the example he gave. Consider other possible input... A CSV format generally defines an espape character, often either a doublequote or a backwack. There may be more than one quoted field. Etc. So, what would your code do to a line like:

42, "Simpson, Homer ""Mr. Donuts"", "Springfield"
[download]

-sauoq
"My two cents aren't worth a dime.";

[reply]
[d/l]