in reply to Replacing a pesky pair of quotes.

What do you mean it "isn't working"? Are you sure your data really is what you think it is? Note that you don't need to \ the " inside the regexp, though it doesn't hurt. Here's test code that works for me. 
#!/usr/bin/perl -lw

use strict;
use warnings;

while(<DATA>){
  chomp;
  my @data = split /\t/;
  my $ddrul = $data[7];
  $ddrul =~ s/\"//g;
  print "'$ddrul'";
}

__DATA__
EST-NY    234    5-Oct    Springfield    MA    Springfield College    
+Townhouse Conference Room    http://www.spfldcol.edu/home.nsf/welcome
+/visit/directionsc
EST-NY    923    18-Oct    Salisbury    MD    Wor Wic Community Colleg
+e        http://www.worwic.edu/campus/directions.pdf
EST-NY    886    19-Oct    Frederick    MD    Hood College        http
+://www.hood.edu/welcome_to_hood/index.cfm?pid=_maps.htm#a1
SW    328    19-Oct    Houston    TX    University of Houston - Clear 
+Lake        "http://prtl.uhcl.edu/portal/page?_pageid=328,217631,328_
+217645&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTALP"

[download]
Prints: 
'http://www.spfldcol.edu/home.nsf/welcome/visit/directionsc'
'http://www.worwic.edu/campus/directions.pdf'
'http://www.hood.edu/welcome_to_hood/index.cfm?pid=_maps.htm#a1'
'http://prtl.uhcl.edu/portal/page?_pageid=328,217631,328_217645&_dad=p
+ortal&_schema=PORTALP'

[download]

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^2: Replacing a pesky pair of quotes.
by hmbscully (Scribe) on Aug 11, 2005 at 20:32 UTC
    I don't know what else I can think my data is. The example data I supplied is what it is.

    The crux of my code is

        open(INFILE,"$ew_sites_file") || die "Cant open $ew_sites_file for
+ reading $!\n";
    while($line = <INFILE>) {
        chomp $line;
        ($unused, $site, $date, $city, $state, $facility, $unused, $dd
+url) = split(/\t/,$line); #tab-delimited file
        $ddrul =~ s/"//g;
        $ddurl =~ s/\r//;  #lose that bad newline break
        
        #build the registration site lookup flatfile : state and javas
+cript URL    
        open(OUTFILE,">>$ew_regist_parse_file") || die "cant open $ew_
+regist_parse_file, $!\n"; 
        print OUTFILE "$state|$start_tag$site$inbetween$city$inbetween
+$state$inbetween$date$inbetween$ddurl$semicolon$city, $state : $date$
+endtag\n";
        close OUTFILE;        
        
        #build the locations flatfile            
        open(OUT2FILE,">>$ew_locate_parse_file") || die "cant open $ew
+_locate_parse_file, $!\n"; 
        print OUT2FILE "$state|$city|$facility|$date|$ddurl\n";
        close OUT2FILE;
    }
    close INFILE;

    [download]

    The warnings say that the $ddrul =~ s/"//g; is using an initalized value, which I don't understand because it is. The output is two files, an example of one (the simpler one) is:

    TX|Austin|University of Texas at Austin|11-Oct| http://www.utexas.edu/
+cee/tcc/forms/tcclargemap.pdf
TX|Houston|University of Houston - Clear Lake|19-Oct|"http://prtl.uhcl
+.edu/portal/page?_pageid=328,217631,328_217645&_dad=portal&_schema=PO
+RTALP"
TX|El Paso|University of Texas - El Paso|25-Oct| http://www.utep.edu/s
+earch/campusmaplarge.html

    [download]
    Still with the extra quotes.
[reply]
[d/l]
[select]
      a use strict would have caught the mispelled variable "ddrul" as opposed to what it should be - "ddurl"
[reply]
[d/l]
        THANK YOU!
        I knew it was something obvious.

        As for use strict;, I am very aware that I don't use it. I have a very old perl install and the unix admin has something horked so that invoking strict means the script will never work, no matter how simple or how correctly coded it is.

        But tomorrow, I get a new shiny linux box with tasty up-to-date perl and my excuses go away!
[reply]
[d/l]
      I'd probably have written it this way. 
      while (<INFILE>) {
    my (undef, $site, $date, $city, $state, $facility, undef, $ddurl) 
+=
        /\G"?([^\t]*?)"?(?:\t|[\r\n]+$)/g;
}

      [download]
[reply]
[d/l]

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