replace characters in link

[ytjPerl]

Hi Monks,

I basically know how to replace partial of string with designated characters. But I have trouble with the string containing special characters which pass to perl variable and which I only keep it as it is in perl. For instance, I have a web link as https://abc.abc:8080/abc?abcdef&abc=&egh?, I am intending to replace abc.abc:8080 as def.def and keep the rest of it as it is, so the link would be https://def.def/abc?abcdef&abc=&egh?

Is there a way to do it ?

Thanks!

[haukex]

You could use URI to safely parse and modify those kinds of strings.

use warnings;
use strict;
use URI;

my $input = 'https://abc.abc:8080/abc?abcdef&abc=&egh?';
my $uri = URI->new($input);
$uri->host('def.def');
$uri->port(undef);
my $output = "$uri";

use Test::More;
my $expect = 'https://def.def/abc?abcdef&abc=&egh?';
is $output, $expect or diag explain $output;
done_testing;

[ytjPerl]

does it need to escape the special character for the input in this case? Actually my input is dynamic.

[haukex]

does it need to escape the special character for the input in this case? Actually my input is dynamic.

That depends on what special character you mean? URI should be able to handle just about any supported URI you throw at it. Can you show some more examples of what you mean? In fact, my example code includes Test::More, and you can easily extend it with more test cases to see if it does what you want.

Also, please be careful, you've reposted your question twice now. If you have the browser open to the submission page, don't reload it.

[hippo]

Is there a way to do it ?

This is Perl, so TIMTOWTDI. In addition to haukex's approach with URI you could live a bit more dangerously and try any of these:

use strict;
use warnings;

use Test::More tests => 3;

my $have = 'https://abc.abc:8080/abc?abcdef&abc=&egh?';
my $want = 'https://def.def/abc?abcdef&abc=&egh?';
my $try  = $have;

substr ($try, 8, 12, 'def.def');
is ($try, $want, 'substr');

($try = $have) =~ s/\Qabc.abc:8080/def.def/;
is ($try, $want, 'quotemeta regex');

my @bits = split ('/', $have, 4);
$bits[2] = 'def.def';
$try = join '/', @bits;
is ($try, $want, 'split/join');

There are plenty more too - this is just scratching the surface.

[Anonymous Monk]

What does the "is" keyword do in perl? I have been trying to find documentation on it, but I couldn't find anything.

[pryrt]

is: a function in the Test::More module -- it's used for testing results of the code vs an expected value.

edit: see also How to ask better questions using Test::More and sample data