Re: Deleting values from string using array

[aaron_baugher]

PerlMonks taught me about Regexp::Assemble, an excellent module for building regex patterns from lists of strings.

#!/usr/bin/env perl
use Modern::Perl;
use Regexp::Assemble;

my @to_remove = qw( is an to for from );
my @strings = ( 'is that true',
                'this is from presentation',
                'to create',
              );
my $re = Regexp::Assemble->new->add(@to_remove);
# say $re; # uncomment to see the regex it makes
map { s/$re//g } @strings; # remove strings anywhere
# map { s/\b$re\b//g } @strings; # or just remove whole words
say for @strings;

[Cristoforo]

Just a small note. Starting with perl 5.010, you can assemble the stop words into a alternating string separated by the pipe, '|', character and it will use a 'trie' to combine the stop words. It is claimed (by somebody?), the 'trie' approach is big-O 1, an algorithm in constant time (in most cases, they claim). Similiar to what Regexp::Assemble does.

I think I read somewhere that you shouldn't use Regexp::Assemble with perl version > 5.8 because it will muck things up.