You're on the right track already, except that variable names in Perl are prefixed by a sigil - $ is the sigil for a single value, while @ is the sigil for an array/a list, and % is the sigil for a hash ("associative array" in awk).

For a start, I'd just convert the stuff behind the cat invocation verbatim which is the trickier part:

use strict;

# Read from standard input
while (<>) {
    s/;/\n/g; # this is just like sed
    s/:/\n/g; # this is just like sed

    # Now, split the input line on newlines, like awk will do:
    my @pages = split /\n/;

    for my $page (@pages) {
        # I'm using qq{...} instead of double quotes (")
        # so I don't have to escape the stuff in ugly ways
        print qq{<a href="http://mysite.net/$page">$page</a>\n};
    };
};

[download]

To convert the two verbatim sed commands and the awk command into one thing that just takes everything that is delimited by ; or : and prints out a HTML link to it, I'd rewrite the loop as follows:

use strict;

# Read from standard input
while (<>) {

    # Remove the newline at the end of $_
    chomp;

    # Split the input line on ":" or ";":
    my @pages = split /[:;]/;

    for my $page (@pages) {
        # I'm using qq{...} instead of double quotes (")
        # so I don't have to escape the stuff in ugly ways
        print qq{<a href="http://mysite.net/$page">$page</a>\n};
    };
};

[download]

Update: Replaced my erroneous use of $1 with $page, which is the correct variable to use. Thanks, johngg!

In reply to Re: sed awk to perl help by Corion
in thread sed awk to perl help by Anonymous Monk

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.