Sounds like a job for a regular expression: 

#!/usr/bin/perl
my $test = "hello there ass\x08\x08wesome";

print "BEFORE: $test, ", "(length: " . length($test) . ")\n";

while ($test =~ /\x08/) {
  $test =~ s/.\x08//;
}

print "AFTER:  $test, ", "(length: " . length($test) . ")\n";

[download]

On my terminal that prints: 

BEFORE: hello there awesome, (length: 23)
AFTER:  hello there awesome, (length: 19)

[download]

You'd need to use a hex editor (or if you're elite, hexl-mode in Emacs) to confirm that the first string actually had backspaces, but the lengths match my expectations.

The regular expression works by finding any character (.) followed by a backspace (\x08) and replacing them with nothing (i.e. deleting them from the string). This is wrapped up in a loop to repeat the process as long as backspaces are present.

-sam

In reply to Re: ascii problem by samtregar
in thread ascii problem by kermit393

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