\n on a TXT file

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

hi all... i'm a new monk :D i'm writing to you now 'cause I got a trouble... i am trying to transform a plain text file into an XML one... the file looks more or less like this...

###
[b]word[/b]
text
###
[download]

and has to become like that:

###
<TAG>word</TAG>
text
###
[download]

s/\#\#\#\n\[b\](.+)\[\/b\]/<TAG>\1</TAG>/g;
[download]

but it doesnt work....seems like it doesnt match the escape character "\n"... i guess that's because windows uses the combination "end of line+cr" to "sign" the "enter" key.... so that the only "\n" doesnt actually match with anything in the text.... but... i have tried using "\r\n" or "\n\r"... but it doesnt work as well :-( any suggestion?

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Re: \n on a TXT file by ikegami (Patriarch) on May 27, 2009 at 22:19 UTC
It's wrong to use `\1` in the substitution expression. You need to use `$1`. Your code doesn't even compile. `/` in `</TAG>` needs to be escaped. Once I fix those, it works for me. `use strict; use warnings; my $text; { local $/; $text = <DATA>; } $text =~ s/\#\#\#\n\[b\](.+)\[\/b\]/<TAG>$1<\/TAG>/g; print $text; __DATA__ ### [b]word[/b] text ###` [download] `<TAG>word</TAG> text ###` [download] i guess that's because windows uses the combination "end of line+cr" No. When reading a file, CRLF will be converted to LF automatically on read unless you tell it otherwise.	[reply] [d/l] [select]

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Re: \n on a TXT file
by ikegami (Patriarch) on May 27, 2009 at 22:19 UTC

It's wrong to use \1 in the substitution expression. You need to use $1.

Your code doesn't even compile. / in </TAG> needs to be escaped.

Once I fix those, it works for me.

use strict;
use warnings;

my $text; { local $/; $text = <DATA>; }
$text =~ s/\#\#\#\n\[b\](.+)\[\/b\]/<TAG>$1<\/TAG>/g;
print $text;

__DATA__
###
[b]word[/b]
text
###
[download]

<TAG>word</TAG>
text
###
[download]

i guess that's because windows uses the combination "end of line+cr"

No. When reading a file, CRLF will be converted to LF automatically on read unless you tell it otherwise.

[reply]
[d/l]
[select]