Re^3: Make my script faster and more efficient

[quester]

in reply to Re^2: Make my script faster and more efficient
in thread Make my script faster and more efficient

I've gotten gun-shy of chomp as well. In a mixed Unix/Windows environment, or running Cygwin, it's pretty common for $/ to not be set by default to the same line ending that is used in (some of) the input file(s). Monarch's method is more tolerant of incorrect or inconsistent line endings than chomp.

[oshalla]

Indeed so: CRs can sneak in and ruin your day.

Looking at:  $_ =~ s/[\r\n]+\z//s ; makes me twitch a bit, since the values of "\r" and "\n" can vary. However, the best known case of  "\n" ne "\x0A" is (old) Mac systems where  "\n" eq "\x0D" and  "\r" eq "\x0A" , so  [\r\n] appears safe. [Nevertheless, I haven't found anything that guarantees that "\n" and "\r" are duals. perlport touches on systems where they aren't ASCII at all, but that's a whole other world of pain.]

Anyway, I favour:  $_ =~ s/\s+\z// ; on the basis that it finesses the issue and gets rid of any other trailing whitespace -- two birds, one stone.

Mind you, I have seen "\s" defined to be [ \t\n\r\f] -- but current perlreref says it's "whitespace".