What happens when you try it?

If you want to avoid an if/else for the two similar cases, you can do a substitution like this:

s/\xa0(\d)*/defined $1 ? ' ' : ''/e;
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If you want to loop over several values, doing this to each of them, you can do it like this:

for ( $x, $y, $z ) {
    s/\xa0(\d)*/defined $1 ? ' ' : ''/e;
}
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That should work also for some method that returns a list, but it will die if that list contains a read-only value (such as a literal).

I don't know if this answers your question, but I hope you find it useful anyway.

Yup, as I thought - the code is bogus. $table->cell (...) returns the contents of a single cell, not an array. But you already have all the table information in @totalrows. Consider:

use strict;
use warnings;
use HTML::TableExtract;

my $te = HTML::TableExtract->new ();
$te->parse (<<HTML);
<table>
    <tr><td>Cell 1</td><td>Cell 2</td><td>Cell 3</td></tr>
    <tr><td>Cell 4</td><td>Cell 5</td><td>Cell 6</td></tr>
</table>
HTML

my $table = $te->first_table_found;
my @totalrows = $table->rows ();

print "$_->[0] - $_->[1] - $_->[2]\n" for @totalrows;
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Prints:

Cell 1 - Cell 2 - Cell 3
Cell 4 - Cell 5 - Cell 6
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I've no idea what you are trying to achieve with the match and substitutions so I've left that stuff right out, but you can loop over the rows using for my $row (@totalrows) {...} where $row is a reference to the array of cells for the current row.

Maybe you could provide a similar sample with your problem data as the HTML data so we can see what you are trying to do?

Update: Changing the @totalrows assignment to:

my @totalrows =
    map {my $cells = $_; $_ ||= '***' for @{$cells}[0 .. 2]; $cells}
    $table->rows ();
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sets "missing" cells to a default value ('***'). Running the updated code against the sample HTML generates:

Boss  - Firstname Surname  - ***
Secretary  - Name Surname, Mr Jones Smith - ***
Medical Doctor  - Bob Middlename Hope  - ***
Position 1  - Worker  - Secretary 
*** - Asdf Ghjk  - Name Lastname, First Last 
*** - Sally Mally  - Joe Smoe, The Who, Will Timberland 
Position 2  - Paula Simon  - Raymonde Maalouf
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How should I go about formatting the output as:

Boss - Firstname Surname
Secretary - Name Surname, Mr Jones Smith
Medical Doctor - Bob Middlename Hope
Position 1 - Asdf Ghjk  - Name Lastname, First Last 
Position 1 - Sally Mally  - Joe Smoe, The Who, Will Timberland 
Position 2 - Paula Simon  - Raymonde Maalouf
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To those who cannot pick up the subtleness, I need the position always displayed (so I can loop through each row and insert into the database). I was thinking of inserting each new position into an array, then if there is no current position, use $array[-1]; Would this work?

I'm so adjective, I verb nouns!

chomp; # nom nom nom

if ($table->cell($rownum, 0..2) =~ /\xa0/) {
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acts on the result returned from $table->cell($rownum, 0..2). The two subsequent substitutions (only one of which is performed for a particular pass through the code) will act on $_ - which has not been affected by the code shown. It may be that what you really want is something like:

my $cellStr = $table->cell($rownum, 0..2);

if ($cellStr =~ /\xa0/) {
    $cellStr =~ s/\xa0\d+/ /;
} else {
    $cellStr =~ s/\xa0//;
}
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or you could use the default variable:

$_ = $table->cell($rownum, 0..2);

if (/\xa0/) {
    s/\xa0\d+/ /;
} else {
    s/\xa0//;
}
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Oh, and if/else is not a loop! It is however a control structure.

Update: having looked at your code just a little longer - What are you trying to do! Are you trying to edit the string returned by the method call, or is there a larger context in which your code actually makes sense and you do want to edit the contents of the default variable (which must be set as a side effect of the call - very nasty!)?

if (/\xa0/) {
    s/\xa0\d+/ /;
} else {
    s/\xa0//;
}
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If the match in the condition expression of the if-statement for \xa0 somewhere in the string (whether the regex is bound to the string in $_ or $cellStr) fails, how can any substitution involving that character be made in the false clause of the if-statement?

If the match succeeds, isn't it also redundant since the \xa0 character also appears in the substitution regex in the true clause of the if-statement?

Wouldn't $cellStr be an array If I am assigning three different columns: 0, 1, and 2?

I'm so adjective, I verb nouns!

chomp; # nom nom nom

If it is an array (reference) then the match will stringify the reference and you will end up trying to match against something of the form 'ARRAY(0x1f7c3e4)'. Probably not what you want. Maybe you need to show us the bigger picture because right now what you seem to be doing is completely bogus.

---

Perl reduces RSI - it saves typing

What it looks like you're trying to do is take an lvalue to the result of $table->cell($rownum, 0..2). This is, generally, not something that's recommended to be done (though it is doable, kinda). Much better would be to have the $table object be asked to normalize the value that would be returned by $table->cell($rownum, 0..2) within the object itself. That way, you're probably using some sort of hash value. Even then, you can't do the whole $_ lvalue thing. Honestly, I don't like code that overuses $_. Just be explicit about what you're doing.

Now, instead of trying to reuse the operand, you could make the match and substitution a little smarter.

my $strip = '\x0';
$strip .= '\d+' if $table->cell($rownum, 0..2) =~ $strip;
$table->strip( $strip, $rownum, 0..2 );
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# The ... indicates "Whatever" - it's not meant to be syntatically-cor
+rect Perl.
sub strip {
    my $self = shift;
    my ($pattern, ... ) = @_;

    $self->{cells}[...] =~ s/$pattern//;
}
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See how that could work better?

$table->cell($rownum, 0..2) =~ s/\xa0\d+/ /;
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foreach my $rownum (0..$#totalrows) {
  s/\xa0\d+/ /, push @title, $_ for $table->cell($rownum, 0) || '';
  s/\xa0\d+/ /, push @teach, $_ for $table->cell($rownum, 1) || '';
  s/\xa0\d+/ /, push @aides, $_ for $table->cell($rownum, 2) || ''
}
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