uninitialized value $_ in pattern match (m//)

gvinu4u has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hi all, this is the program that I have and working fine except one issue

 
my $xml_file = "Modfile.xml";
open my $list, $xml_file or die "Could not open $file: $!";

my $count = 1;
while( my $line = <$list> ) 
{
    

    my ( $subfamily ) = $line =~ /suite subfamily="(.*?)"/;
    print "The Sub Family is $subfamily \n ";
    
    if ($subfamily =~/[a-z]/){
    my ( $name ) = $line =~ /" name="(.*?)"/;
    print "The Name is $name \n ";
    }

    if ( $name = ~/[a-z]/)    {
    my ( $family ) = $line =~ /" family="(.*?)"/;
    print "The Family is $family \n ";
    
    }
    
    last if ++$count == 3;    
    $count ++ ;
}
    

close File;
[download]

In addition to the expected output I get the below for every iteration, not sure as why I'm getting it.

Use of uninitialized value $subfamily in pattern match (m//) at Test.pl line 34, <$list> line 59.

Use of uninitialized value $_ in pattern match (m//) at Test.pl line 39, <$list> line 59.

Use of uninitialized value $family in concatenation (.) or string at Test.pl line 41, <$list> line 59.

line 34 is-->if ($subfamily =~/a-z/)

line 39 is--> if ( $name = ~/a-z/)

Comment on uninitialized value $_ in pattern match (m//) Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: uninitialized value $_ in pattern match (m//) by ikegami (Patriarch) on Jun 23, 2011 at 03:17 UTC
[ The OP has since been changed ] `$subfamily = /[a-z]/ $name = /[a-z]/` [download] is the same as `$subfamily = $_ =~ /[a-z]/ $name = $_ =~ /[a-z]/` [download] Did you perhaps mean `$subfamily =~ /[a-z]/ $name =~ /[a-z]/` [download] Also, make sure to use `use strict;`; it'll find another error.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: uninitialized value $_ in pattern match (m//) by gvinu4u (Acolyte) on Jun 23, 2011 at 03:23 UTC
ok I'll use it, mean while I've just updated the code output again. When I use strict, I get error like this which does not seem to be an issue for me but blocks the execution :( Global symbol "$file" requires explicit package name at Test.pl line 25. Execution of Test.pl aborted due to compilation errors.	[reply]
Re^3: uninitialized value $_ in pattern match (m//) by ikegami (Patriarch) on Jun 23, 2011 at 03:42 UTC
You read a variable named $file, but you never declared such a variable, much less assigned a value to it. I hadn't even seen that one! Goes to show how important `use strict;` is.	[reply] [d/l]
Re^4: uninitialized value $_ in pattern match (m//) by gvinu4u (Acolyte) on Jun 23, 2011 at 04:13 UTC
Re^5: uninitialized value $_ in pattern match (m//) by ikegami (Patriarch) on Jun 23, 2011 at 06:58 UTC
Re: uninitialized value $_ in pattern match (m//) by 7stud (Deacon) on Jun 23, 2011 at 04:27 UTC
`use strict; use warnings; use 5.010; my $line = 'hello world'; my ($subfamily) = $line =~ /goodbye/; #no match, and list context on the left, so m// returns () say "-->$subfamily<--"; if ($subfamily =~ /x/) { say 'yes'; } --output:-- Use of uninitialized value $subfamily in concatenation (.) or string a +t perl.pl line 10. --><-- Use of uninitialized value $subfamily in pattern match (m//) at perl.p +l line 11.` [download] Whenever you do a match, you need to check whether it succeeded or not. You never checked whether the first $subfamily match was true--like you did with the second match.	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: uninitialized value $_ in pattern match (m//) by gvinu4u (Acolyte) on Jun 23, 2011 at 07:56 UTC
Thanks for replies, The basic thing that I'm intending to do is egt Database Connect - SQL, DBMgrTest and Databases from the below line of XML. `<suite subfamily="Database Connect - SQL" name="DBMgrTest" family="Databases">` Any way of using a better regular expression to get all the three values into $1,$2 and $3 please let me know.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: uninitialized value $_ in pattern match (m//) by choroba (Cardinal) on Jun 23, 2011 at 08:44 UTC
`if ( $name = ~/[a-z]/)` is not the same as `if ( $name =~ /[a-z]/)` [download]	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: uninitialized value $_ in pattern match (m//) by 7stud (Deacon) on Jun 23, 2011 at 09:04 UTC
`use strict; use warnings; use 5.010; use XML::Simple; use Data::Dumper; my $str = q{ <suite subfamily="Database Connect - SQL" name="DBMgrTest +" family="Databases" /> }; my $ref = XMLin($str); say Dumper($ref); say $ref->{name}; say $ref->{family}; say $ref->{subfamily}; --output:-- $VAR1 = { 'subfamily' => 'Database Connect - SQL', 'name' => 'DBMgrTest', 'family' => 'Databases' }; DBMgrTest Databases Database Connect - SQL` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: uninitialized value $_ in pattern match (m//) by gvinu4u (Acolyte) on Jun 23, 2011 at 10:39 UTC
Thanks for the reply....its wroking but as a learner I wanted to use regex.. especially to extract substrings b/w a line as in this case. `my $line = '<suite subfamily="Database Connect - SQL" name="DBMgrTest +family="Databases">'; my $pattern = '<suite subfamily="(*.?)+name=(\S+)\s+family=(\S+)'; if ($line =~ /$pattern/)` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re: uninitialized value $_ in pattern match (m//) by 7stud (Deacon) on Jun 23, 2011 at 18:34 UTC
use strict; use warnings; use 5.010; my $line = '<suite subfamily="Database Connect - SQL" name="DBMgrTest" + family="Databases">'; my $pattern = q{ <suite \s* subfamily="(.?)" \s name="(.?)" \s family="(.*?)" }; if ( my ($subfamily, $name, $family) = ($line =~ /$pattern/xms) ) { #Successful match, and the left hand side of the equals sign #is a list, and in list context m// returns a list of the #matches for the parenthesized groups say $subfamily; say $name; say $family; } --output:-- Database Connect - SQL DBMgrTest Databases [download] But that pattern is very brittle. What happens if the attributes are in a different order? Or if there are spaces before or after the = sign? Or if there are single quotes instead of double quotes? HTML and XML are hard to parse, so if there is already a well known module like XML::Simple available, learn how to use that instead.	[reply] [d/l]