Perfect it works. Thanks so much. | [reply] |
Just to understand better (it's the only way to learn :-) ) what do those symblos mean with grep?? What would you have to do if for examples the lines would be test;;understand and you want to delete those with the ;; in them?? | [reply] |
my @data = grep { /^\S+;/ } <FILEHANDLE>;
grep takes two arguments - a block of code that defines a filter and list of values. It assigns each item in the input list in turn to $_ and then evaluates the block of code. If the block of code returns a true value then the value in $_ is added to the returned list.
So, in this example, each record returned by <FILEHANDLE> is put into $_ and the expression /^\S+;/ is evaluated. /.../ is the match operator (m/.../ without the optional 'm') so the symbols within it are interpreted as a regular expression. By default the match operator matches the regular expression against $_.
So, to recap. Every line from FILEHANDLE is checked against the regular expression. The ones that match are returned by grep.
Next we need to understand what the regular expression is checing for. In this case, it's pretty simple. We are looking for the start of the string (^), followed by one or more non-whitespace characters (\S+), followed by a semicolon (;). If you wanted to check for other types of line then it would just be a case of creating the appropriate regex.
Hope that's clearer.
--
< http://www.dave.org.uk>
"The first rule of Perl club is you do not talk about
Perl club."
-- Chip Salzenberg
| [reply]
[d/l] |
OK I got it so far and when I am using the syntax you two gave me it is working, but only in the opposite way it should... I only get the lines with ;; instead of leaving those out and getting the other ones. How can you do that (i.e. do grep everything except those with)
| [reply] |
I thought that /^\;\;\{2\}/ would work but it doesn't
| [reply] |
The grep symbols are a regular expression operator... its the m// operator with the m omitted (which is very valid and quite common) The regex he posted would not take those out as well. you would need to use an assertion after the semicolon in the current regex... to say... all this.. not followed by a ;.. the match says.
m/ #Match
^#From the beginning of the line
\S+#One or more non space characters
;#followed by a semi-colon
/
Anyone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong there.
| [reply]
[d/l] |
