split and assign

rvijay17 has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: split and assign by JadeNB (Chaplain) on Aug 03, 2009 at 04:25 UTC
You can index directly into the result of a function call: `$schema_username = ( split '=', $line )[1];` [download] Note also that the first argument to `split` is a regex, not a string literal, even if you mean it to be. In particular, `split '.', EXPR` probably won't behave as you expect. (In fact, `split '\.', EXPR` and `split /\./, EXPR` behave differently—I don't know why. Oh, now I see. What I actually tested was `split "\.", EXPR`, and Perl regards `"\."` as a (pointless) escaping of `.`, so that it's read the same as `"."`—which, when interpreted as a regex, matches any single character. In `split '\.', EXPR`, no escaping is done, so everything's fine.)	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: split and assign by AnomalousMonk (Archbishop) on Aug 03, 2009 at 05:03 UTC
And there's also: `>perl -wMstrict -le "my $line = 'foo=bar=baz'; my (undef, $schema_username) = split /=/, $line; print $schema_username; " bar` [download] Update: Although it must be admitted that this approach would get a bit tedious if one were interested not in the second field but in the twenty-second!	[reply] [d/l]
Re^3: split and assign by JadeNB (Chaplain) on Aug 03, 2009 at 07:22 UTC
Although it must be admitted that this approach would get a bit tedious if one were interested not in the second field but in the twenty-second! I hoped for a mad moment that `my ( ( undef ) x 21, $var ) = func;` [download] or at least `( ( undef ) x 21, my $var ) = func;` [download] would work—but they don't ….	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: split and assign by chromatic (Archbishop) on Aug 03, 2009 at 09:03 UTC
You can index directly into the result of a function call.... You can make a list slice of any expression which evaluates to a list.	[reply]
Re: split and assign by Anonymous Monk on Aug 03, 2009 at 20:26 UTC
`my $schema_username = ( split /=/, $line )[1];` [download] or `my ($schema_username) = $line =~ /=(.*)/s;` [download] By the way, the first arg of `split` is a regex. Don't fool yourself into thinking it matches literally by using quotes. - ikegami	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: split and assign by Anonymous Monk on Mar 04, 2014 at 18:42 UTC
What about if I need 3 of the elements, not just one? Right now I'm using: `$line = "aa;bb;cc;dd;ee"; my @stuff = split(/;/, $line); my $a = $stuff[0]; my $b = $stuff[1]; my $d = $stuff[3];` [download] Is there a shortcut to this? I'm actually parsing a csv and only need columns 1, 2 and 8... Thanks!	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: split and assign by hazylife (Monk) on Mar 04, 2014 at 18:54 UTC
I'm actually parsing a csv and only need columns 1, 2 and 8 `my ($a, $b, $c) = (split /;/, $line)[0,1,7];` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re^3: split and assign by Anonymous Monk on Mar 04, 2014 at 19:06 UTC
Thanks! My brain is fried, I kept trying multiple [] like `[0][1][7] and [0],[1],[7]...`	[reply] [d/l]