Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!ucsd!ucbvax!iwarp.intel.com!news
From: merlyn@iwarp.intel.com (Randal Schwartz)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Re: Pattern Substitution Question
Keywords: pattern
Message-ID: <1990Oct29.200349.15909@iwarp.intel.com>
Date: 29 Oct 90 20:03:49 GMT
References: <1086@dg.dg.com>
Sender: news@iwarp.intel.com
Reply-To: merlyn@iwarp.intel.com (Randal Schwartz)
Organization: Stonehenge; netaccess via Intel, Beaverton, Oregon, USA
Lines: 40
In-Reply-To: blurie@dg-rtp.dg.com (Benjamin Lurie)

In article <1086@dg.dg.com>, blurie@dg-rtp (Benjamin Lurie) writes:
| Here's a question, whose answer I'm sure is going to be trivial, that I've
| been trying to resolve for days.  Given input like the following:
| 
| 	Lurie;Benjamin;1212 Nowhere Road;(617) 923-0000;(w) (000) 202-2343
| 
| I would like to translate it to:
| 
| 	Benjamin Lurie;1212 Nowhere Road;(617) 923-0000;(w) (000) 202-2343
| 
| I've tried a pattern match looking for a semi-colon, but I always get the
| longest pattern that matches, which would include everything up to the "(w)".

assuming $_ = "Lurie...2343\n"... it'd be:

s/^([^;]*);([^;]*);/$2 $1;/;

Or, if you prefer thinking in fields, something like:

	@f = split(/;/);
	$_ = join(";", "$f[1] $f[0]", @f[2..$#f]);

and to be totally clean about it,

	chop if /\n$/;
	@f = split(/;/);
	$_ = join(";", "$f[1] $f[0]", @f[2..$#f]) . "\n";

(which works even if you move around the last field).

The last two are incorrect inside a general-purpose subroutine, which
ought to take $[ into consideration, but I'll presume that's not a
problem for you yet.

$_ = "another;Just;hacker;Perl"; @f = split(/;/); print "@f[1,0,3,2],";
-- 
/=Randal L. Schwartz, Stonehenge Consulting Services (503)777-0095 ==========\
| on contract to Intel's iWarp project, Beaverton, Oregon, USA, Sol III      |
| merlyn@iwarp.intel.com ...!any-MX-mailer-like-uunet!iwarp.intel.com!merlyn |
\=Cute Quote: "Intel put the 'backward' in 'backward compatible'..."=========/