Re: Scurbbing a string

[BrowserUk]

You'll probably reject this because it uses string eval, but it is simple and effective.

$ex = 'p!u-r-*e'; 
$ctl = 'pure';;
eval "\$ex =~ tr[$ctl][]cd;"; 
print $ex;;
pure

[Anonymous Monk]

Won't that fail, or even produce incorrect results, if $ctl includes tr metacharacters?

[BrowserUk]

Yes. But remember that $ctl in that snippet is the equivalent of the OPs $pure, not the variable being cleaned.

Still, I guess they could legitimately contain meta chars. If the OPs $pure variable(s) are sourced from outside of his program or genuinely might contain meta characters, then a quotemeta would probably be appropriate.

Indeed, it might be good if that were mentioned in the eval tr example in perlop.

[BrowserUk]

It just struck me that you can avoid having to use the quotemeta function by using metacharacter form:

eval "\$ex =~ tr[\Q$ctl\E][]cd;";