Re: How do I put bracket on substring(s) of a string?

[jdporter]

sub put_brackets
{
    my( $str, @pats ) = @_;
    my $mask = ' ' x length $str;
    my $ofs = 0;
    for ( @pats )
    {
        $ofs = index $str, $_, $ofs;
        last if $ofs < 0; # this pattern not found; look for no more.
        substr $mask, $ofs, length($_), 'a' x length($_);
    }
    # print "string= '$str'\n";
    # print "mask  = '$mask'\n";

    join '', map sprintf(
        /a/ ? '[%s]' : '%s',
        substr $str, 0, length($_), ''
    ), split /\b/, $mask
}