Checking a path

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

Just curious to know if there would be a more efficient way to interrogate a string that contains a path to ensure the last character contains a slash.

Please excuse the full source code below, I have a shell I use when testing out things, the real code I have to do what I am seeking is:

first checking the last character

if (substr($TestStrings{$TestPatternKey},length($TestStrings{$TestPatternKey})-1,1) ne "\\")

And then if necessary adding the slash

$TestStrings{$TestPatternKey} .= "\\";".

Full Code

use warnings;
use strict;
use File::Basename;


my $Script = $0;
my $ScriptPath = dirname($Script);
my $ScriptName = basename($Script, ".pl").".pl";
my $ScriptVersion = "1.0.0";

my %TestStrings = ("00001" => "C:\\Test1",
                   "00002" => "C:\\Test2\\",
                  );
                 
my $TestPatternKey = '';

print "\n$ScriptName \n\n";
    
print "\n  Loop through the test Strings in the \%TestStrings Hash:";
    
foreach $TestPatternKey (sort keys %TestStrings)
{
    if (length($TestStrings{$TestPatternKey}) > 0)
    {
        printf("\n\n  \$TestPatternKey: %-6s    \$TestPatternKeyValue:
+ %-40s \n",$TestPatternKey,$TestStrings{$TestPatternKey});

        if (substr($TestStrings{$TestPatternKey},length($TestStrings{$
+TestPatternKey})-1,1) ne "\\")
        {
            $TestStrings{$TestPatternKey} .= "\\";
            print "                                        Corrected: 
+$TestStrings{$TestPatternKey} \n\n";
        }
        else
        {
            print "\n";
        }
    }
}
[download]

Comment on Checking a path Select or Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Checking a path by toolic (Bishop) on Nov 18, 2009 at 17:17 UTC
This is less code. It appends a trailing backslash only if your string does not have one. You must decide whether it is easier for you to understand than the code you already have: `$TestStrings{$TestPatternKey} =~ s/\\?$/\\/;` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Checking a path by keszler (Priest) on Nov 18, 2009 at 17:15 UTC
`$TestStrings{$TestPatternKey} .= "\\" if $TestStrings{$TestPatternKey} + !~ /\\$/;` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Checking a path by bellaire (Hermit) on Nov 18, 2009 at 17:17 UTC
Using `substr` like you have in your example probably is the most efficient way to go about this. Usually, though, this kind of micro-efficiency isn't something you need to worry about unless you've done profiling and you know that you have good reason to seek an improvement.	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: Checking a path by AnomalousMonk (Archbishop) on Nov 18, 2009 at 17:46 UTC
Note that for more concision the last character of the string can be obtained by: `substr($TestStrings{$TestPatternKey}, -1)` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Checking a path by FFSparky (Acolyte) on Nov 18, 2009 at 17:37 UTC
Thanks for the wisdom!	[reply]