Re: Matching Words

[Zaxo]

How about this?

#!perl -w
use strict;
while (<>) {
    my @words = split /\W+/;
    pop  @words if $words[-1] eq '';
#    pop  @words unless $words[-1];
    shift @words if $words[0] eq '';
#    shift @words unless $words[0];
    print $words[0], ' ', $words[-1], $/;
}

The pop and shift are needed because split leaves empty elements at the ends if nonword characters are there.

A couple of comments on your code. I think you mean \W*$/ at the right of your regex. Also, you can use a (?:\W+\w*\W*)+ to get grouping without capture.

Update: I sure like MeowChow's array slice in print:

    print "@words[0,-1]$/";

Update 2: A palpable hit, ++tadman. Corrected.

After Compline,
Zaxo

[tadman]

In:

0 donuts are in the drawer on the left

Out:

donuts left

If zero were true, then black would be white, and you would likely be killed by a bus when using a zebra crossing. Or so I have heard.

New riff based on MeowChow's direction:

perl -ple '$_="@{[/\w+/g]}[0,-1]"'

Homework, Golf, what's the difference?

[MeowChow]

Homework, Golf, what's the difference?

The teacher's ability to comprehend the answer, I would guess :-)

ps. nice stroke.

   MeowChow                                   
               s aamecha.s a..a\u$&owag.print

[HollyKing]

Ahh, yes it should be \W*$ at the end.

Owl looked at him, and wondered whether to push him off the tree; but, feeling that he could always do it afterwards, he tried once more to find out what they were talking about.