Re: Regex to array

[choroba]

The only problem is the empty field created by split at the start of the text, otherwise you'd have been able to assign the result directly to %sections. But you can create a false entry at the beginning and remove it later:

#! /usr/bin/perl
use warnings;
use strict;

my $text = << '__TEXT__';
SECTION 1

This is the first section.

SECTION 2

And this is
the second one.
__TEXT__

my %section = ("", split /(SECTION \d+)/, $text);
delete $section{""};
use Data::Dumper; print Dumper \%section;

Update: Note that hashes use curly brackets, not the square ones (unlike in PHP).

[Eily]

Or there's the option of using undef to ignore a value in a list. I don't remember where it's documented though: (undef, my %section) = split /(SECTION \d+)/, $text;

[AnomalousMonk]

... where it's documented ...

See List value constructors in perldata:

... you may assign to "undef" in a list. This is useful for throwing away some of the return values of a function ...

Assignment to undef works for any list assignment, but if you're assigning from an array or list, it's usually more sane to use some kind of slice rather than fooling around with undef.

[Eily]

See List value constructors in perldata

perldata! Thanks!

but if you're assigning from an array or list, it's usually more sane to use some kind of slice rather than fooling around with undef.

Why? To make a slice in this case you'd need to know in advance how many matches there will be, or first store the output in an array and then slice away the first element. It's doable and understandable, but I don't see how skipping a value with undef is less sane.