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

Hi Monks,

I have a string of 0s and I am trying to convert 0s to numerical values to that given index and offset. for example:

my $VALUE = "0\t" x 10; ## array of 0s and I having \t because I want 
+a delimited outputfile
chop($VALUE);
print "First statement: ,$VALUE,"\n";
my $signal = "0.5\t0.845";
substr($VALUE, 2,2) =~ s/0/$signal/g; ## want to make changes at index
+ 2 and 3
print "Second statement: ",$VALUE,"\n";

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******Results:*******

First statement: 0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0    
Second statement: 0    0.5    0.845    0    0    0    0    0    0    0
+    0

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I can understand how perl is thinking about it. As it is making the changes at index 2 and not 3. Therefore, I am getting a vector of 11 numbers rather than 10. One way could be using for loop and then making the change but I would like to know if there is a shorter way to do it rather than using loops. Thanks.

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Substr Problem
by GrandFather (Saint) on Sep 27, 2012 at 01:38 UTC

    It's not over clear what you want to do, but my best guess is that you have a vector of data where you want to alter some of the values then print the resulting vector. A good way to do that is to transform your string representation of the data to an array, edit the data in the array, then write it back out as a string:

    use strict;
use warnings;
use 5.010;

my $str = "0\t" x 10;
my @values = split '\s+', $str;

printf "First statement:\t%s\n", join "\t", @values;

@values[2, 3] = (0.5, 0.845);
printf "Second statement:\t%s\n", join "\t", @values;

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    Prints:

    First statement:    0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0
Second statement:    0    0    0.5    0.845    0    0    0    0    0  
+  0

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    True laziness is hard work
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      Thanks a lot. The mistake I was doing was my thinking in the substr way ro solve my problem.

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Re: Substr Problem
by Athanasius (Archbishop) on Sep 27, 2012 at 02:19 UTC

    Hello snape,

    GrandFather’s solution is definitely the way to go. However, for the record, your code can be made to give the output you want by changing the substitution:

    substr($VALUE, 2, 2) =~ s/0/$signal/g;

    [download]

    into a simple assignment:

    substr($VALUE, 2, 3) = $signal;

    [download]

    By the way, the /g modifier on the substitution is redundant in this case.

    Athanasius <°(((>< contra mundum

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      Or, even simpler: 
      substr $VALUE, 2, 3, $signal;

      [download]
      لսႽ† ᥲᥒ⚪⟊Ⴙᘓᖇ Ꮅᘓᖇ⎱ Ⴙᥲ𝇋ƙᘓᖇ
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