in reply to Remove blank space during find/replace

As others have put - it is hard to tell where the spaces are coming from without more code. However, your replacement hash looks fine, so you probably have a sneaky space in your replacement code along the lines of (but a '#' instead of ' '):

my $string = '<TList.Bullet><TList.Item>sometext</TList.Item></TList.B
+ullet>';
print "Before : \'$string\'\n";

my %find_replace = (
        q[<TList.Bullet>]     => q[<ul>],
        q[</TList.Bullet>]     => q[</ul>],
        q[<TList.Item>]     => q[<li>],
        q[</TList.Item>]     => q[</li>],
);

for (keys %find_replace){
    $string =~ s/\Q$_\E/\#$find_replace{$_}/;
}

print "After : \'$string\'\n";

## Gives :
# Before : '<TList.Bullet><TList.Item>sometext</TList.Item></TList.Bul
+let>'
# After : '#<ul>#<li>sometext#</li>#</ul>'

[download]

But it woul help to see the replacement code and come real input / output.

Update : Forgot to include output... Now included with code.

Just a something something...

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Re^2: Remove blank space during find/replace
by Melk (Initiate) on Nov 27, 2009 at 15:45 UTC

    Thanks for the suggestions, I've inserted my code below. Please let me know if you see the code that is generating the blank space.

    use strict;
    use File::Find;
    use File::Path;
    use File::Copy;
    my $folderPath = "C:/Folder1";

    my %findReplaceH = (
    q[<TList.Bullet>]=>q[<ul>],
    q[</TList.Bullet>]=>q[</ul>],
    <TList.Item>]=>q[<li>],
    q[</TList.Item>]=>q[</li>],
    my $useRegexQ = 0;
    $folderPath =~ s[/$][];

    $folderPath =~ m[/(\w+)$];
    my $previousDir = $`;
    my $lastDir = $1;

    my $totalFileChangedCount = 0;
    sub fileFilterQ ($) {
    my $fileName = $_[0];

     if ($fileName =~ m{\.xml$}) {
    print "processing: $fileName\n";
    return 1;};

    return 0;
    };

    sub processFile {
     my $currentFile = $File::Find::name; # full path spect
    my $currentDir = $File::Find::dir;
    my $currentFileName = $_;

    if (not fileFilterQ($currentFile)) {
      return 1;
    }
    if (not(open FILE, "<$currentFile")) {die("Error opening file:
    $!");};
     my $wholeFileString;
      {local $/ = undef; $wholeFileString = <FILE>;};
      if (not(close(FILE))) {die("Error closing file: $!");};

    # do the replacement.
     my $replaceCount = 0;

     foreach my $key1 (keys %findReplaceH) {
        my $pattern = ($useRegexQ ? $key1 : quotemeta($key1));
      $replaceCount = $replaceCount + ($wholeFileString =~
    s/$pattern/$findReplaceH{$key1}/g);
     };

    if ($replaceCount > 0) { # replacement has happened
    $totalFileChangedCount++;
    # get the file mode.
    my ($mode, $uid, $gid) = (stat($currentFile))[2,4,5];

      # write out a new file.
     if (not(open OUTFILE, ">$currentFile")) {die("Error 
opening file: $!");};

    [download]

     print OUTFILE $wholeFileString;
    if (not(close(OUTFILE))) {die("Error closing file: $!");};

     # set the file mode.
     chmod($mode, $currentFile);
    chown($uid, $gid, $currentFile);

     print "$replaceCount replacements made at\n";
      print "$currentFile\n";
    }
    };
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      I'm not sure if you have a 'cut and paste' issue, but the code you supply has syntax errors. The hash declaration for %findReplaceH is not terminated with a ), and you have a q[ missing on one line. I get:
      "my" variable $folderPath masks earlier declaration in same scope at C
+:\gash.pl
line 17.
"my" variable $folderPath masks earlier declaration in same scope at C
+:\gash.pl
line 19.
Unmatched right square bracket at C:\gash.pl line 14, at end of line
syntax error at C:\gash.pl line 14, near "<TList.Item>]"
syntax error at C:\gash.pl line 68, near "print"
Execution of C:\gash.pl aborted due to compilation errors.

      [download]
      I added use warnings;

      Update 2
      Fixing these issues, I then found that neither subroutine is actually called, I guess you are missing a File::Find.
      Anyway, so I extracted the RE and and tried a simple test. This time I assumed that the data had embedded spaces, so I altered the RE:
      my %findReplaceH = (
    q[<TList.Bullet>\\s*] =>q[<ul>],
    q[\\s*</TList.Bullet>]=>q[</ul>],
    q[<TList.Item>\\s*]   =>q[<li>],
    q[\\s*</TList.Item>]=>q[</li>],
    );

my $useRegexQ = 1;

my $wholeFileString='<TList.Bullet><TList.Item> sometext </TList.Item>
+</TList.Bullet>';
my $replaceCount = 0;
    
foreach my $key1 (keys %findReplaceH) {

    my $pattern = ($useRegexQ ? $key1 : quotemeta($key1));
            
    $replaceCount = $replaceCount + ($wholeFileString =~ 
                        s/$pattern/$findReplaceH{$key1}/g);
};
print "$wholeFileString\n";

      [download]
      and it appears to work correctly without extra spaces:
      <ul><li>sometext</li></ul>

      [download]
      Note that I set $useRegexQ to force quotemeta
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