remove whitespace from an array

Anonymous Monk has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

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Re: remove whitespace from an array by tlm (Prior) on Aug 03, 2005 at 11:52 UTC
Probably all you need to do is print the array like this: `print @array, "\n";` [download] and not like this `print "@array\n";` [download] Read more... (1036 Bytes) the lowliest monk	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: remove whitespace from an array by gellyfish (Monsignor) on Aug 03, 2005 at 12:05 UTC
I think you are looking at two different things here, firstly if you print `@array` as: `print "@array";` [download] you will get the elements of `@array` separated by the value of `$"` (aka `$LIST_SEPARATOR` if using the `English` module). so you can do: `local $" = ''; print "@array";` [download] will not output the spaces - of course in this simple case you can simply omit the double quotes and the items will not be separated, I am assuming you are interpolating into a larger quoted string. If you want to remove any array elements that comprise only whitespace you can use `grep` : `@array = grep !/^\s+$/, @array;` [download] You could also use `map` to strip leading or trailing whitespace from the elements: `@code = map { s/^\s+//; s/\s+$//; $_ } @array;` [download] and so forth. /J\	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: remove whitespace from an array by blazar (Canon) on Aug 03, 2005 at 12:06 UTC
There is no white space "stored" in `@array`. You're surely interpolating like thus: `"@array"`. In which case, just... don't! Or else read up about `$"` in perldoc perlvar.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: remove whitespace from an array by bangers (Pilgrim) on Aug 03, 2005 at 12:07 UTC
From what you’ve written I doubt that the white space is in the array. It is probably being added when you print the contents. What happens if you print it out with the following `print ‘[‘ . join(‘][‘, @array) .”]\n”;` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: remove whitespace from an array by blazar (Canon) on Aug 03, 2005 at 13:16 UTC
Huh?!? At first sight those quotes didn't look quite right to me, so I tried to download code and indeed this is what I got when opening with my editor: `print ~^Q[~^Q . join(~^Q][~^Q, @array) .~^T]\n~^T;` [download] I suppose they're HTML entities. The actual code you wanted to show is probably: `print '[' . join('][', @array) ."]\n";` [download]	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^3: remove whitespace from an array by bangers (Pilgrim) on Aug 03, 2005 at 14:03 UTC
good catch! I'm an appalling speller and have gotten into the habit of typing posts into word first to ensure they are coherent. Stupidly I also typed my code in there and picked up Word's "smart" quotes.	[reply]
Re^2: remove whitespace from an array by Anonymous Monk on Aug 03, 2005 at 12:56 UTC
the use of $" appears to have done the job, thanks for your help. $" is yet another new feature to me Thanks	[reply]
Re^3: remove whitespace from an array by blazar (Canon) on Aug 03, 2005 at 13:35 UTC
And where is `$"` mentioned it the node you're replying to? It is mentioned in other replies, e.g. gellyfish's or my own. Not that I'm upset because I wanted to be thanked personally, only I think one should pay attention to attributions otherwise some confusion may arise...	[reply] [d/l]