(Challenge)(for new users) Replacing a text

[theroninwins]

Ok I found this little golf challenge on the net and would like to see how it can be solved.... then again i guess it will be fun for you all to try it.

Write a command-line Perl program to replace every occurance of 'Will Emigh' (exactly like that) with 'YAPH Emigh' in a given file. Hint: look at the -i command-line flag.

Update: thanks to castaway who told me that this here is not difficult I have to mention that this challenge was given by a University to test there best Perl users..... sorry about this I thought I would be more difficult.

the goal is to have the shortest answer.

[robharper]

Well, I'm a newbie, so a rummage through perlrun (thanks for the hint) got me there. I'll hide this behind a readmore, just in case anyone else wants a go...

Update: not including the filename at the end, 37 chars

Read more... (304 Bytes)

[antirice]

And with -w...

# perl -wpi -e 's/Will( Emigh)/JAPH\1/g' FileName
\1 better written as $1 at -e line 1.
#

[tachyon]

perl -pi -e 's/Will(?= Emigh)/YAPH/g' file

[theroninwins]

In case you are interested in who has the shortest answer it would be nice if you could write the amount of chars used before the eradmore

[Random_Walk]

If the phrase split across a line break does not count then it is easy. If it does count then it is rather hard to do in a one liner without being clunky..

# No worries about line breaks
perl -i -pe's/Will Emigh/YAPH Emigh/g' 

# line breaks concern me but STDOUT will do
perl -pe'$a.=$_}{$_=$a;s/Will(\n*) (\n*)Emigh/YAPH\1 \2Emigh/g'

# line break concern me and lets put it back in the file
perl -ne'BEGIN{$f=$ARGV[0]}$a.=$_}{$_=$a;s/Will(\n*) (\n*)Emigh/YAPH\1
+ \2Emigh/g;open F,">$f";print F $_'

Of course the last only works with one input file, and I got so worried about line breaks I forgot to make it short. (cunning tachyon)

Cheers,
R.

[borisz]

36 from me

perl -i -pe's/Will(?= Emigh)/YAPH/g'

[robharper]

Does that include the surname in the changed version? Or am I missing something?

[borisz]

Take a look! Just inspect the source of this page. My solution replace all occurrence of Will Emigh with YAPH Emigh.

[JediWizard]

perl -pi -e 's/Will(\s+Emigh)/YAPH$1/g'

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