in reply to Removing digits until you see | in a string

To get whatever's before the |: 

($data_hash{$index}) = $str =~ /([^|]*)/;

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( I originally posted ($data_hash{$index}) = $str =~ /(\d+)/;. )

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Re^2: Removing digits until you see | in a string
by kevyt (Scribe) on Jan 08, 2007 at 05:29 UTC
    When I do it this way, it seems to overwrite the previous index in the hash. I store about 40 indexes with strings but I only had one to print. I am not sure what I did wrong.
[reply]
      Sorry, I misread the problem. Use quester's.
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Re^2: Removing digits until you see | in a string
by jettero (Monsignor) on Jan 08, 2007 at 14:23 UTC

    See, I would have used something like ($data_hash{$index}) = $str =~ m/^(.+?)(?=\|)/. I wondered if it was faster to stop on the pipe with [^|] or use a lookahead: 

    use strict;
use Benchmark;

my $index;
my $str = "lol238923892382938|lol282812|asdfasdf|asdfasdfasdf";

timethese(5000000, {
    'stopper'   => sub { ($index) = $str =~ m/([^|]+)/ },
    'lookahead' => sub { ($index) = $str =~ m/^(.+?)(?=\|)/ },
    'splitter'  => sub { ($index) = split /\|/, $str },
});

    [download]

    The lookahead is technically faster on my machine, but not by enough to count as a victory. I'd be curious about other's results. Sadly, the splitter wins over the regulars by a similar (i.e. smallish) amount.

    -Paul

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