How can I efficiently handle multiple Perl search/replace operations on the same string?

Question

So my Perl script basically takes a string and then tries to clean it up by doing multiple search and replaces on it, like so:

$text =~ s/<[^>]+>/ /g;
$text =~ s/\s+/ /g;
$text =~ s/[\(\{\[]\d+[\(\{\[]/ /g;
$text =~ s/\s+[<>]+\s+/\. /g;
$text =~ s/\s+/ /g;
$text =~ s/\.*\s*[\*|\#]+\s*([A-Z\"])/\. $1/g; # replace . **** Begin or . #### Begin or ) *The 
$text =~ s/\.\s*\([^\)]*\) ([A-Z])/\. $1/g; # . (blah blah) S... => . S...

As you can see, I'm dealing with nasty html and have to beat it into submission.

I'm hoping there is a simpler, aesthetically appealing way to do this. I have about 50 lines that look just like what is above.

I have solved one version of this problem by using a hash where the key is the comment, and the hash is the reg expression, like so:

%rxcheck = (
        'time of day'=>'\d+:\d+', 
    'starts with capital letters then a capital word'=>'^([A-Z]+\s)+[A-Z][a-z]',
    'ends with a single capital letter'=>'\b[A-Z]\.'
}

And this is how I use it:

 foreach my $key (keys %rxcheck) {
if($snippet =~ /$rxcheck{ $key }/g){ blah blah  }
 }

The problem comes up when I try my hand at a hash that where the key is the expression and it points to what I want to replace it with... and there is a $1 or $2 in it.

%rxcheck2 = (
        '(\w) \"'=>'$1\"'
}

The above is to do this:

$snippet =~ s/(\w) \"/$1\"/g;

But I can't seem to pass the "$1" part into the regex literally (I think that's the right word... it seems the $1 is being interpreted even though I used ' marks.) So this results in:

if($snippet =~ /$key/$rxcheck2{ $key }/g){  }

And that doesn't work.

So 2 questions:

Easy: How do I handle large numbers of regex's in an easily editable way so I can change and add them without just cut and pasting the line before?

Harder: How do I handle them using a hash (or array if I have, say, multiple pieces I want to include, like 1) part to search, 2) replacement 3) comment, 4) global/case insensitive modifiers), if that is in fact the easiest way to do this?

Thanks for your help -

Answer 1

Problem #1

As there doesn't appear to be much structure shared by the individual regexes, there's not really a simpler or clearer way than just listing the commands as you have done. One common approach to decreasing repetition in code like this is to move $text into $_, so that instead of having to say:

$text =~ s/foo/bar/g;

You can just say:

s/foo/bar/g;

A common idiom for doing this is to use a degenerate for() loop as a topicalizer:

for($text)
{
  s/foo/bar/g;
  s/qux/meh/g;
  ...
}

The scope of this block will preserve any preexisting value of $_, so there's no need to explicitly localize $_.

At this point, you've eliminated almost every non-boilerplate character -- how much shorter can it get, even in theory?

Unless what you really want (as your problem #2 suggests) is improved modularity, e.g., the ability to iterate over, report on, count etc. all regexes.

Problem #2

You can use the qr// syntax to quote the "search" part of the substitution:

my $search = qr/(<[^>]+>)/;
$str =~ s/$search/foo,$1,bar/;

However I don't know of a way of quoting the "replacement" part adequately. I had hoped that qr// would work for this too, but it doesn't. There are two alternatives worth considering:

1. Use eval() in your foreach loop. This would enable you to keep your current %rxcheck2 hash. Downside: you should always be concerned about safety with string eval()s.

2. Use an array of anonymous subroutines:

my @replacements = (
    sub { $_[0] =~ s/<[^>]+>/ /g; },
    sub { $_[0] =~ s/\s+/ /g; },
    sub { $_[0] =~ s/[\(\{\[]\d+[\(\{\[]/ /g; },
    sub { $_[0] =~ s/\s+[<>]+\s+/\. /g },
    sub { $_[0] =~ s/\s+/ /g; },
    sub { $_[0] =~ s/\.*\s*[\*|\#]+\s*([A-Z\"])/\. $1/g; },
    sub { $_[0] =~ s/\.\s*\([^\)]*\) ([A-Z])/\. $1/g; }
);

# Assume your data is in $_
foreach my $repl (@replacements) {
    &{$repl}($_);
}

You could of course use a hash instead with some more useful key as the hash, and/or you could use multivalued elements (or hash values) including comments or other information.

Answer 2

You say you are dealing with HTML. You are now realizing that this is pretty much a losing battle with fleeting and fragile solutions.

A proper HTML parser would be make your life easier. HTML::Parser can be hard to use but there are other very useful libraries on CPAN which I can recommend if you can specify what you are trying to do rather than how.