in reply to Re: Split without removing characters
in thread Split without removing characters

I don't care for this approach, because it fails as soon as $foo comes with embedded pipe characters. Then you have to think about escaping existing pipe characters, and so on, until you've reinvented CSV.

-Colin.

WHITEPAGES.COM | INC

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Re^3: Split without removing characters
by Transient (Hermit) on Jun 17, 2005 at 20:05 UTC
    Nevertheless, given a set of known data, or a one-time event, this will work just as well. Not that I'm particularly a fan of it either, but it is another way to do it.
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Re^3: Split without removing characters
by monarch (Priest) on Jun 18, 2005 at 15:15 UTC
    Whilst a good point, it would have been helpful to add that a character other than a pipe character could be substituted, thereby avoiding the problem whereby $foo comes with embedded pipe characters. In fact you could use a complex string which you feel is almost guaranteed not to occur!

    e.g.

     my $sepstring = '7c6xb1%$#!@#$!@';

 my $foo = "Hello WorldFoo BarPerl MonksSlash Dot";
 for ($foo) {
    s/([a-z])([A-Z])/$1$sepstring$2/g;
    for (split /\Q$sepstring\E/ ) {
        print "$_ \n";
    }
 }

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[d/l]

      I wonder why you defend an approach that is more complex, less efficient, and prone to a problem that is "almost guaranteed not to occur", when there is a simple approach that is guaranteed not to have such a problem?

      -Colin.

      WHITEPAGES.COM | INC

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