'ikegami' => sub {$working_var = $test_text; $working_var =~ s/(?<= )( )/' ' x length($1)/eg}
That code is wrong: there's a + missing from after the 2nd space, which means that $1 always has a length of one! When benchmarking code, first check that each of your variants yield the same answer as each other before timing them.
However, in this particular case it doesn't seem to make much difference to the timings.
Personlly I'd go with GrandFather's solution even if it were the slower, on the grounds I think it'd be more readable&nbps;...
Personally I'd go with Ikegami's variant over GrandFather's, even though it is slower, because I think Ikegami's is more readable*! GrandFather's variant involves matching something that you don't intend replacing, then sticking it back in the substitution, which is a little messy. By using the lookbehind assertion Ikegami's way clearly documents that you wish to perform the substitution just after a space, but that the space itself isn't going to be replaced.
... to more people.
That's probably true, in the sense that the people who know the lookbehind assertion are a subset of those who know about regexps. But I think I should write my production Perl code for a target audience of people who do know Perl, and not worry that people who aren't Perl coders might not understand it: I'm employed to write Perl programs, in Perl, and I don't think it'd be reasonable of my employer to expect a Java programmer to understand them unaided.
(In the same way, when writing documentation in English I want to be able to choose the best way of saying what I want to say in English, rather than intentionally writing it more sloppily on the grounds that when I write it precisely and accurately I may be using words that are unfamiliar to those who don't speak English: I'm employed to write English documentation, in English (in England, for other English people to read), and I don't think it'd be reasonable of my employer to expect a Brazillian to understand it unaided.)
* Actually, I'd probably go with my own variant (see above), which happens to be faster than either of these.
Smylers
In reply to Re^5: Converting multiple spaces to nbsp
by Smylers
in thread Converting multiple spaces to nbsp
by eastcoastcoder
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