split delimiters

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

Although I have worked on Perl for a few months, I am quite the major rookie. I am working on a script where I need to split lines of a report into fields and I am having problems using ( and [ as delimiters. There is really no other way to split this and I have no clue what to do..can you help me please!!!!! My deadline is approaching?!??!??!?!?!

Comment on split delimiters

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Re: split delimiters by busunsl (Vicar) on Mar 27, 2001 at 01:26 UTC
Since ( and [ are special characters in regular expressions, you have to escape them: `split /\(/, 'some(odd(string'; split /\[/, 'next[odd[string';` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Re: split delimiters by Daddio (Chaplain) on Mar 27, 2001 at 04:14 UTC
Or, just in case both of these delimiters should be used for one split... `split /[\[\(]/, 'some(next[really(really(odd[string';`	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Re: Re: split delimiters by busunsl (Vicar) on Mar 27, 2001 at 10:51 UTC
Well, in that case you don't have to escape them, because they are in sqare brackets: `split /[([]/, 'some(wierd[string';` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re: split delimiters by myocom (Deacon) on Mar 27, 2001 at 01:24 UTC
This would be infinitely easier if you were to post your script (make sure to enclose it in <code> tags!), some sample data, the expected output, and what you're getting now.	[reply]
Re: split delimiters by wardk (Deacon) on Mar 27, 2001 at 01:25 UTC
there is going to be a number of ways to slay this dragon. Please provide a couple of data records as an example of the actual data, and if you have some, post the code that currently isn't making it happen for you...	[reply]