split fixed string into character pairs

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

I've a six character string I'd like to split into three character pairs. I just keep thinking it should be easier to split the string in pairs, than my solution. The closest I can get is this:

$var1 = $1 and $var2 = $2 and $var3 = $3 if /(.{2})(.{2})(.{2})/;

Can anyone think of a more elegant and perly way to do this? Just curious.

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Re: split fixed string into character pairs by Anonyrnous Monk (Hermit) on Dec 09, 2010 at 15:14 UTC
or with unpack: `my $s = "aabbcc"; my ($var1, $var2, $var3) = unpack "(A2)*", $s; say for $var1, $var2, $var3; __END__ aa bb cc` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re: split fixed string into character pairs by JavaFan (Canon) on Dec 09, 2010 at 15:15 UTC
`my @pairs = /../gs;` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re: split fixed string into character pairs by kennethk (Abbot) on Dec 09, 2010 at 15:11 UTC
In list context, a regular expression will return the elements of its capture buffers. This means `my ($var1, $var2, $var3) = /(.{2})(.{2})(.{2})/;` or even: `my (@array) = /(.{2})(.{2})(.{2})/;` will do what you need and avoids a bunch of potential scoping issues. See Extracting matches in perlretut.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: split fixed string into character pairs by Ratazong (Monsignor) on Dec 09, 2010 at 15:23 UTC
The following solution is not very scaleable, not really perlish (other than being an example for TIMOTOWTDI), but at least easily understable ...: `my $str = "abcdef"; my $v1 = substr $str, 0,2; my $v2 = substr $str, 2,2; my $v3 = substr $str, 4,2;` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re: split fixed string into character pairs by raybies (Chaplain) on Dec 09, 2010 at 15:46 UTC
Thanks for all the great responses. Some pretty obvious ones. :) I should not have stayed up so late last night... JavaFan gets extra kudos for least number of characters. :)	[reply]
Re^2: split fixed string into character pairs by Tux (Canon) on Dec 09, 2010 at 15:49 UTC
In perl that is by no means a guarantee to also be the fastest code :) If your dataset is large/huge, you'd notice that the `unpack` solution posted by an Anonymous Monk was way faster than all the others. And once you are used to that, it will be much easier to extend and maintain than regular expressions. Enjoy, Have FUN! H.Merijn	[reply] [d/l]