autoconverting print to say

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

I was wondering if there is any tool that could go through code and replace print with say where appropriate.

For example,

print "foo\n"; should become say "foo"; or say 'foo';

Similarly print "$a\n" could become say "$a" or ideally just say $a

Manually making this type of change seems tedious and error prone. I was hoping for something similar to perltidy that could do it automatically.

P.S. If no tool like this exists, any thoughts and what it would take to hack something like this together?

Thanks in advance.

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Re: autoconverting print to say by GrandFather (Saint) on Nov 14, 2009 at 00:05 UTC
Why? print is unlikely to go away and is no less readable than say. It does contain two more characters, but hard disks and monitors these days can probably cope with that excess. The risk if introducing errors or at least cosmetic changes in the output far outweigh the minor perceived cosmetic advantage of using say instead of print. If you have a compelling desire to make the change, do it piecemeal during maintenance as you visit code for other reasons. True laziness is hard work	[reply]
Re^2: autoconverting print to say by ikegami (Patriarch) on Nov 14, 2009 at 00:40 UTC
Nit: Typically 4 or 8 more characters. `print "...\n"; say "...";1234 print ..., "\n"; say ...;12345678` [download] Your good point still applies, of course. There's also the point that using `say` lock you into 5.10+.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: autoconverting print to say by Fletch (Bishop) on Nov 13, 2009 at 23:16 UTC
Pardon the possibly obvious question, but . . . Why? Seems like a clear cut case of "ifn ain't broke don't frell with it". I mean aside from scoring points with the k00l k1dz for using the h3p n00 (cough sorry, it's out of my system now) style, what benefit is there? The cake is a lie. The cake is a lie. The cake is a lie.	[reply]
Re: autoconverting print to say by chromatic (Archbishop) on Nov 13, 2009 at 22:46 UTC
I convert this code by hand (or a Vim macro) only when I can verify that it's correct. Consider the case of a modified `$\`, for example; if you substitute print for say then, you'll change the behavior of the program.	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: autoconverting print to say by ikegami (Patriarch) on Nov 13, 2009 at 23:07 UTC
Chances are `print "...\n"` isn't used in conjunction with `$/`. I'd look for `$/` to make sure it's not going to interfere, then use something like `while (<>) { s/print(.?)\\n("\)?;)/say$1$2/; s/(say.?)[.,]\s*""(\)?;)/say$1$2/; print; }` [download] Then, I'd do a quick diff between the original and the modified file to verify the change. Don't forget to look for missed occurrences, including `local $\ = "\n"; print "foo";`	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: autoconverting print to say by ssandv (Hermit) on Nov 13, 2009 at 23:29 UTC
I'd be somewhat leery of doing it unless I knew a lot about the code base. To wit: `print " ",(join " \n",@list),"\n"; #one of many ways to indent a list print "$var\n" ; #replaced hardcoded 'print "hello\n";' line.` [download] are just two of many strange things people might do that could match a `s/^print(stuff)\\n(more stuff)/say $1$2/;` line oddly.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: autoconverting print to say by Jorge_de_Burgos (Beadle) on Nov 14, 2009 at 07:02 UTC
Since both print and say have output, and your main concern is avoiding alteration of that output when replacing one with the other, I think an automated replace should test your program's output (all variants of it) before and after the replace. If outputs don't differ, it means your automated replace has worked OK. If modified $/ (or other) bugs occur, a diff on outputs will scream out loud and clear!	[reply]