Hi,

a quick hack to solve your problem:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;

my $string = "foo" x 4;
print "$string\n";

my $pattern = "foo";
my $better = "bar";
my $n=1;
$string =~ s/^(($pattern){$n})$pattern/$1$better/;
print "$string\n";

[download]
$n holds the number of occurences to be skipped, so $n = 1 means the second will be replaced. The output:

atl@companion:~/perl/s > one.pl 
foofoofoofoo
foobarfoofoo

[download]
I believe that's what you wanted. IMHO it ain't ugly, too. ;-)

Have fun ...

Andreas

In reply to RE: Selective substitution: not in Perl? by atl
in thread Selective substitution: not in Perl? by Anonymous Monk

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