http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=988702


in reply to Editing the contents of a variable

Better? Who knows? That depends on your intent, your data, etc.

More concise (and less reliance on $_... which is easy to overuse):

#!/usr/bin/perl
use 5.014;
# 988698

my $str = "yada yada <name> string-to-capture </name> foo bar baz";
if ( $str =~ m!<name>(.*?)<\/name>! )
   {
      my $var1=$1;
      $var1 =~ s/ //g;  # removing spaces?
      print "$var1\n";
   }

[download]

However, if the actual "tags" are intended to be html, xml or suchlike, your "better way" almost certainly involves using an appropriate parser.

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^2: Editing the contents of a variable
by flexvault (Monsignor) on Aug 21, 2012 at 12:58 UTC

    ww,

    Just a thought, if the 'string-to-capture' had information separated by spaces, your code would eliminate all spaces, maybe the special case: 

    my $str = "yada yada <name> string-to-capture   string-to-capture2 </n
+ame> foo bar baz";
if ( $str =~ m!<name>(.*?)<\/name>! )
   {
      my $var1=$1;
      $var1 = join(" ", split " ", $var1 );  # remove leading, trailin
+g and 
                                             # collapse internal white
+space
      print "$var1\n";
   }

    [download]
    would be better. ( Taken from Camel book 3rd edition, page 154 )

    "Well done is better than well said." - Benjamin Franklin

[reply]
[d/l]
      The s/ //g is OP's. Comment (question) is mine as, (for most purposes I can imagine in the background of the OP,) it makes no obvious sense.

      Your reply, however, calls attention to that, which is a good thing, if OP is cargo-culting or had missed the implications. + +

[reply]
[d/l]

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