Quick question: I've got a date 11/01/2001 and I need to keep the format "as is" except in one part where it's required to be 11/01/01.

Logic tells me I need to search for character positions 6 & 7 and replace them with nothing.

I've tried several variations of s///g; and substr(); but can't quite seem to get the syntax right.

If anyone is willing to point me in the right direction, I'd much appreciate it.

Thanks, Mike.

Edit: Wouldnt work

Ok this works (but its tooo long):

$date =~ s,^(\d{2}/\d{2}/)\d\d(\d{2})$,$1$2,;

cant you do:

--Philip
Links 2.0 moderator

Nope. But you can do:

$date =~ s;\d\d(\d\d)$;$1;;

Any reason not to use the substr function?

$date= '11/05/2001';
substr($date, -4, 2, '');
print $date;

Seems a little less confusing than a regex, IMHO.

--
Matt G

Paul, that code I posted is valid... you should know that it's perfectly acceptable (even suggested in perldoc) to omit the ';' from the last line of code in a block.

Besides, I think he would have added the ';' anyway.

--Philip
Links 2.0 moderator

Yes Drew I realise you can omitt ; on some occasions but I also tried the code and it gave me syntax errors which disappeared when I added the extra ;

less confusing?? I don't think so. what if your variable isn't defined directly above your substr statement? how can you know, without scrolling through your source code, whta exactly you're searching for and replacing? That's why I'd prefer regexps... even if reading them is a bit cryptic at times.

--Philip
Links 2.0 moderator

Give the following code a try...you'll see what I mean

I don't get any errors when I run this:
which is what I meant by:

--Philip
Links 2.0 moderator

Me neither but that wasn't what you originally posted.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of regex's... I use them far more often than substr (which is almost never).

But in this particular application, you know that you are dealing with a four digit year at the end of a string... seems the easiest thing to do is go back four spaces and replace two characters with nothing... which is almost exactly what you are doing with the regex.

I see your point about being able to decipher a regex to see what you are searching/replacing... something of a tradeoff in either case, I suppose. I guess it would depend on the complexity of the script.


--
Matt G

I'm beginning to get a complex with all these DUH's aimed at me :(

Guess I'm just inferior

and the four argument version of substr doesn't work in perl 5.004 which means you have to use the cryptic:

substr($date, -4, 2) = "";

;)

Cheers,

Alex
--
Gossamer Threads Inc.

Wow! What fun! Thanks for the ideas...

Y'all solved my problem.