Eliminating last comma

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

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Eliminating last comma by japhy (Canon) on Jun 21, 2006 at 13:13 UTC
To remove a trailing comma from a string, all you need is `$string =~ s/,$//;` Jeff `japhy` Pinyan, P.L., P.M., P.O.D, X.S.: Perl, regex, and `perl` hacker How can we ever be the sold short or the cheated, we who for every service have long ago been overpaid? ~~ Meister Eckhart	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Eliminating last comma by Fletch (Bishop) on Jun 21, 2006 at 13:34 UTC
No one's mentioned it yet (that I noticed), but this could be an XY problem with the actual solution being use `join( ",", @names )` instead of whatever method you're using now that's leaving a trailing comma (like appending `"$x,"` inside a for loop, for example).	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Eliminating last comma by dorward (Curate) on Jun 21, 2006 at 13:13 UTC
You don't need to match the entire string, just the bit you want to modify. `my $myNames = "Jones, Smith, Baker, Johnson,"; $myNames =~ s/,$//;` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Eliminating last comma by davorg (Chancellor) on Jun 21, 2006 at 13:13 UTC
There's no need for the $myNames variable in the regex or the substitution string. `$my_text =~ s/,$//;` [download] But it might be easier to just not add the last comma in the first place. -- <http://dave.org.uk> "The first rule of Perl club is you do not talk about Perl club." -- Chip Salzenberg	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Eliminating last comma by sgifford (Prior) on Jun 21, 2006 at 16:03 UTC
Another option: if the last character is always a comma, then you really just want to remove the last character, which you can easily do with `chop($myNames)`. -- sgifford's Web page	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Eliminating last comma by dsheroh (Monsignor) on Jun 21, 2006 at 15:23 UTC
I know the "$" matches the last character but not sure how to eliminate the ",". If so, then you know wrong. `$` matches the end of the string (just after the last character), not the last character itself. (It's also possible that you just phrased it unclearly, but I figure better safe than sorry...) Aside from that, avoid adding the comma in the first place if possible (probably by using `join` to buld the string), use `s/,$//` if not, just like others have said.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Eliminating last comma by Joost (Canon) on Jun 21, 2006 at 13:14 UTC
I'm assuming $myNames = 'Jones, Smith, Baker, Johnson,' The regular expression then becomes: `my $myNames = 'Jones, Smith, Baker, Johnson,'; $myNames =~ s/,$//; # replace comma at the end of the string with empt +y string print "$myNames\n";` [download] "What should it profit a man, if he should win a flame war, yet lose his cool?"	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: Eliminating last comma by Anonymous Monk on Jun 21, 2006 at 13:21 UTC
You people on here are quick! Thanks!!	[reply]
A reply falls below the community's threshold of quality. You may see it by logging in.