Perl - String Subsitution problem

[pgp_acc1]

Hi,

I have a problem regarding date conversion actually. The date format will be in the following format : 2008/09/20-01-04-30.17.
I have to convert it to 2008092001043017.
Its working in the following format :
echo "2008/09/20-01-04-30.17" | perl -pi -e 's/\///g,s/-//g,s/\.//g'

But when i try the same like this:
perl -pi -e '
$k="2008/09/20-01-04-30.17";
$l= print $k; s/\///g,s/-//g,s/\.//g;
print $l; '

its not working, it gives the output like this : 20081

Thanks,
Priya

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi Priya:

There are several things here.

In your original post, the use of the '-i' switch is meaningless since there is no file to update. Otherwise the substitution is correct for removing the "/", "-" and ".".

In the second case (your question), you need to drop the '-p' switch since there is no input file to process. Drop the extraneous '-i' too. Now, to better see what's happening, add '-l' to automatically add a newline to print() statements:

# perl -le '$k="2008/09/20-01-04-30.17";$l=print $k;s/\///g,s/-//g,s/\.//g;print $l'
2008/09/20-01-04-30.17
1

Now, you see that the line with the "1" is from the scalar result of 'print $k' which is a true value since it isn't zero. A true value is one (1) and that's what is printed.

The substitution that you wrote operates on '$_' but that's not what you wanted. You should have done:

# perl -le '$k="2008/09/20-01-04-30.17";print $k;($l=$k)=~s/\///g;$l=~s/-//g;$l=~s/\.//g;print $l'

Lastly, if you find this helpful, please remember to evaluate the help you receive:

http://forums11.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/helptips.do?#28

You can appply that to your previous query too:

http://forums11.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1313088

Doing so improves the quality of this community and helps its members find the most useful solutions.

Regards!

...JRF...

[pgp_acc1]

Hi James,

Thanks for the detailed reply.
It really helped.
One more doubt is there any way to combine all three commands into one single one?
As this date change will have to be done most frequently.

Thanks,
Priya

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi (again) Priya:

> One more doubt is there any way to combine all three commands into one single one?

Yes. You could use a bracket expresssion like:

# perl -le '$k="2008/09/20-01-04-30.17";print $k;($l=$k)=~s/[\/\.-]//g;print $l'
2008/09/20-01-04-30.17
2008092001043017

Notice that the "-" character is placed last in the bracket expression so that it isn't interpreted as a range. The "." doesn't need to be escaped within a bracket class, so we can keep it clean looking.

By the way, your original '$l= print $k' was simply capturing the return value of the print statement (not so meaningful, but one, or true, nevertheless). I misspoke about that before, not having had coffee, I mis-scanned :-).

Regards!

...JRF...

[pgp_acc1]

James,

Thanks a lot for the reply
:)

Priya

[pgp_acc1]

Got the solution from James

[H.Merijn Brand (procura]

If the original date format is always the same, and is assured to have leading zeroes, why not simply:

($l = $k) =~ s/\D//g;

As a side note, parsing dates and/or calculations with dates are usually better done with modules:

Date::Calc
Date::Parse
Date::Manip
DateTime

Enjoy, Have FUN! H.Merijn