I'm looking for an easy way to overwrite the empty string in a variable.

For undefined variables, I use the following:

$var //= '?';

Which means (to me at least), "If $var is undef, then assign it the value '?'".

I would like something similar for the case when $var contains '', e.g.

$var ///= '';

where I fabricated the '///=' operator for the purposes of illustration.

Currently, I use the following syntax:

$var = '?' if $var eq '';

Can anyone think of a tighter syntax? The above approach becomes cumbersome as variable names increase in length. (Hmm, as I write this, I'm considering that perhaps long variable names are the root cause of this issue. I do a lot of coding around SNMP, and so end up with extravaganzas like $dot3adAggPortActorOperState_before and dot3adAggPortActorOperState_after.)

Anyway, I'm wanting a clear way to represent the process of overwriting the empty string in variables -- if you have suggestions, plse let me know.

--sk

In reply to searching for clear ways to overwrite the empty string by Anonymous Monk

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