Cooking with Perl

Aug 21, 2003 by Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington

Editor’s note: The new edition of Perl Cookbook is about to hit store shelves, so to trumpet its release, we offer some recipes–new to the second edition–for your sampling pleasure. This week’s excerpts include recipes from Chapter 6 (“Pattern Matching”) and Chapter 8 (“File Contents”). And be sure to check back here in the coming weeks for more new recipes on topics such as using SQL without a database server, extracting table data, templating with HTML::Mason, and more.

Sample Recipe: Matching Nested Patterns

Problem

You want to match a nested set of enclosing delimiters, such as the arguments to a function call.

Solution

Use match-time pattern interpolation, recursively:

my $np;
$np = qr{
           \(
           (?:
              (?> [^(  )]+ )    # Non-capture group w/o backtracking
            |
              (??{ $np })     # Group with matching parens
           )*
           \)
        }x;

Or use the Text::Balanced module’s extract_bracketed function.

Discussion

The $(??{CODE}) construct runs the code and interpolates the string that the code returns right back into the pattern. A simple, non-recursive example that matches palindromes demonstrates this:

if ($word =~ /^(\w+)\w?(??{reverse $1})$/ ) {
    print "$word is a palindrome.\n";
}

Consider a word like “reviver”, which this pattern correctly reports as a palindrome. The $1 variable contains "rev" partway through the match. The optional word character following catches the "i". Then the code reverse $1 runs and produces "ver", and that result is interpolated into the pattern.

For matching something balanced, you need to recurse, which is a bit tricker. A compiled pattern that uses (??{CODE}) can refer to itself. The pattern given in the Solution matches a set of nested parentheses, however deep they may go. Given the value of $np in that pattern, you could use it like this to match a function call:

$text = "myfunfun(1,(2*(3+4)),5)";
$funpat = qr/\w+$np/;   # $np as above
$text =~ /^$funpat$/;   # Matches!

You’ll find many CPAN modules that help with matching (parsing) nested strings. The Regexp::Common module supplies canned patterns that match many of the tricker strings. For example:

use Regexp::Common;
$text = "myfunfun(1,(2*(3+4)),5)";
if ($text =~ /(\w+\s*$RE{balanced}{-parens=>'(  )'})/o) {
  print "Got function call: $1\n";
}

Other patterns provided by that module match numbers in various notations and quote-delimited strings:

$RE{num}{int}
$RE{num}{real}
$RE{num}{real}{'-base=2'}{'-sep=,'}{'-group=3'}
$RE{quoted}
$RE{delimited}{-delim=>'/'}

The standard (as of v5.8) Text::Balanced module provides a general solution to this problem.

use Text::Balanced qw/extract_bracketed/;
$text = "myfunfun(1,(2*(3+4)),5)";
if (($before, $found, $after)  = extract_bracketed($text, "(")) {
    print "answer is $found\n";
} else {
    print "FAILED\n";
}

See Also

The section on “Match-Time Pattern Interpolation” in Chapter 5, “Pattern Matching,” of Programming Perl, 3rd Edition; the documentation for the Regexp::Common CPAN module and the standard Text::Balanced module.

Sample Recipe: Pretending a String Is a File

Problem

You have data in string, but would like to treat it as a file. For example, you have a subroutine that expects a filehandle as an argument, but you would like that subroutine to work directly on the data in your string instead. Additionally, you don’t want to write the data to a temporary file.

Solution

Use the scalar I/O in Perl v5.8:

open($fh, "+<", \$string);   # read and write contents of $string

Discussion

Perl’s I/O layers include support for input and output from a scalar. When you read a record with <$fh>, you are reading the next line from $string. When you write a record with print, you change $string. You can pass $fh to a function that expects a filehandle, and that subroutine need never know that it’s really working with data in a string.

Perl respects the various access modes in open for strings, so you can specify that the strings be opened as read-only, with truncation, in append mode, and so on:

open($fh, "<",  \$string);   # read only
open($fh, ">",  \$string);   # write only, discard original contents
open($fh, "+>", \$string);   # read and write, discard original contents
open($fh, "+<", \$string);   # read and write, preserve original contents

These handles behave in all respects like regular filehandles, so all I/O functions work, such as seek, truncate, sysread, and friends.

See Also

The open function in perlfunc(1) and in Chapter 29 (“Functions”) of Programming Perl, 3rd Edition; “Using Random-Access I/O;” and “Setting the Default I/O Layers”

O’Reilly & Associates will soon release (August 2003) Perl Cookbook, 2nd Edition.

• Sample Chapter 1, Strings is available free online.
• You can also look at the Table of Contents, the Index, and the full description of the book.
• For more information, or to order the book, click here.