Perl Split

Perl Split

A very useful function in Perl is split, which splits up a string and places it into an array. The function uses a regular expression and as usual works on the $_ variable unless otherwise specified.

The split function is used like this:

[perl]
$info = “Caine:Michael:Actor:14, Leafy Drive”;
@personal = split(/:/, $info);
[/perl]

which has the same overall effect as

[perl]
@personal = ("Caine", "Michael", "Actor", "14, Leafy Drive");
[/perl]

If we have the information stored in the $_ variable then we can just use this instead

[perl]
@personal = split(/:/);
[/perl]

If the fields are divided by any number of colons then we can use the RE codes to get round this. The code

[perl]
$_ = “Capes:Geoff::Shot putter:::Big Avenue”;
@personal = split(/:+/);
[/perl]

is the same as

[perl]
@personal = (“Capes”, “Geoff”, “Shot putter”, “Big Avenue”);
[/perl]

But this:

[perl]
$_ = “Capes:Geoff::Shot putter:::Big Avenue”;
@personal = split(/:/);
[/perl]

would be like

[perl]
@personal = (“Capes”, “Geoff”, “”, “Shot putter”, “”, “”, “Big Avenue”);
[/perl]

A word can be split into characters, a sentence split into words and a paragraph split into sentences:

[perl]
@chars = split(//, $word);
@words = split(/ /, $sentence);
@sentences = split(/\./, $paragraph);
[/perl]

In the first case the null string is matched between each character, and that is why the @chars array is an array of characters – ie an array of strings of length 1.