in reply to replace all but first

Firstly, there isn't much information you've given us. The layout of the file may be helpful. Secondly, I would reccomend using tr rather than s (see perlop). Since you are not replacing, but rather transliterating. However, if you wanted to replace a with ABBA (haha) then you would want to use the s operator.

Grygonos

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^2: replace all but first
by texuser74 (Monk) on Sep 03, 2004 at 13:52 UTC
    This is what i am trying to do

    my text file has
    <cnt>Germany</cnt><cmp>ALLIANZ INSURANCE</cmp>
    <cnt>Germany</cnt><cmp>ALLIANZ PARKWAY</cmp>
    <cnt>Germany</cnt><cmp>ALLIED DOMECQ</cmp>

    i want to replace it as
    <cnt>Germany</cnt><cmp>ALLIANZ INSURANCE</cmp>
    <TAB><cmp>ALLIANZ PARKWAY</cmp>
    <TAB><cmp>ALLIED DOMECQ</cmp>

    i.e. i want to replace "<cnt>Germany</cnt>" to "<TAB>" from its second occurance

[reply]
      use strict;
use warnings;
 
my %seen;
while ( <DATA> ) {
   next unless /^(<cnt>([^<]+)<\/cnt>)(.*)$/;
   print $seen{$2}++ ? "<TAB>$3\n" : "$1$3\n";
}


__DATA__
<cnt>France</cnt><cmp>ACCOR</cmp>
<cnt>France</cnt><cmp>AGF</cmp>
<cnt>France</cnt><cmp>AIR LIQUIDE</cmp>
<cnt>Germany</cnt><cmp>ALLIANZ INSURANCE</cmp>
<cnt>Germany</cnt><cmp>ALLIANZ PARKWAY</cmp>
<cnt>Germany</cnt><cmp>ALLIED DOMECQ</cmp>
<cnt>United Kingdom</cnt><cmp>LEICESTER CITY FOOTBALL CLUB</cmp>
<cnt>United Kingdom</cnt><cmp>SPENCER GEARS</cmp>

      [download]
[reply]
[d/l]
      If it's not going to appear twice on the same line: 
      my $seen=0;
while(<DATA>) {
  if ($seen) { s{<cnt>Germany</cnt>}{<TAB>} }
  else { $seen ||= m{<cnt>Germany</cnt>} }
  print;
}
__DATA__
<cnt>Germany</cnt><cmp>ALLIANZ INSURANCE</cmp>
<cnt>Germany</cnt><cmp>ALLIANZ PARKWAY</cmp>
<cnt>Germany</cnt><cmp>ALLIED DOMECQ</cmp>

      [download]
      Caution: Contents may have been coded under pressure.
[reply]
[d/l]
      
$data =~ s{(<cnt>Germany</cnt>)}{$seen++?'<TAB>':$1}ge;

      [download]

       

[reply]
[d/l]

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