Re: Regular Expression Trick (Don't use one!)

Why use a regex?!?

foreach my $line (@lines)
{
    my ($name, $values) = split '::', $line, 2; # <-- This is the key 
+- limit your split
    my @values = split /\|/, $values;         # <-- This is not limite
+d

    print "$name\n";
    foreach my $value (@values)
    {
        my ($color, $number) = split '::', $value;
        print "\t$color => $number\n";
    }
    print $/;
}
[download]

Update: Fixed stupidity with '|' character (Thanks, duff!)

------
We are the carpenters and bricklayers of the Information Age.

The idea is a little like C++ templates, except not quite so brain-meltingly complicated. -- TheDamian, Exegesis 6

... strings and arrays will suffice. As they are easily available as native data types in any sane language, ... - blokhead, speaking on evolutionary algorithms

Please remember that I'm crufty and crochety. All opinions are purely mine and all code is untested, unless otherwise specified.

Comment on Re: Regular Expression Trick (Don't use one!) Download Code

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Re: Re: Regular Expression Trick (Don't use one!) by duff (Parson) on Nov 24, 2003 at 15:08 UTC
Well, your method uses regular expressions too, they're just arguments to the split() routine. BTW, your second split won't work quite right as \| is special in regular expressions and the first argument to split is always a regular expression (except for the one special case of `' '`). Also, it appears from the problem description that a pipe symbol also separates individual records, so your solution won't quite do the right thing anyway. But, I suspect that the original poster left something out when he said The only constant is the placement of the "::" and the "\|". as it looks like the number of things is also constant (otherwise why use such a restrictive RE?). So, it may be that a plain-jane pattern match with captures is the Right Way for this particular problem.	[reply] [d/l]

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Re: Re: Regular Expression Trick (Don't use one!)
by duff (Parson) on Nov 24, 2003 at 15:08 UTC

Well, your method uses regular expressions too, they're just arguments to the split() routine. BTW, your second split won't work quite right as | is special in regular expressions and the first argument to split is always a regular expression (except for the one special case of ' ').

Also, it appears from the problem description that a pipe symbol also separates individual records, so your solution won't quite do the right thing anyway. But, I suspect that the original poster left something out when he said

The only constant is the placement of the "::" and the "|".

number

[reply]
[d/l]