--- Rene Verharen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> In one of my scripts I do a search and replace like this
> :
>
> $text =~ s/$search/$replace/;
>
> This works fine, but if $search or $replace contains
> one or more words between round brackets () it doesn't
> what I had in mind :
>
> $text = "This is a text (with brackets)...";
> $rearch = "(with brackets)";
> $replace = "without brackets";
> $text =~ s/$search/$replace/;
> print $text;
>
> If I run this example it prints : This is a text
> (without brackets)...
>
> Where did I go wrong ?
Mistyping $search? :P But that isn't the whole story...
$search and $replace are interpolated into the regex, not
as just a string but PART OF THE REGEX. This means you
really have:
$text =~ s/(with brackets)/without brackets/;
when you really wanted:
$text =~ s/\(with brackets\)/without brackets/;
You can obviously put those escapes in, or alternatively
use:
$search = quotemeta "(with brackets)";
which does that bit of work for you. Removing bracket
pairs (not nested), can be done using:
$text =~ s/\(([^)])*\)/$1/g;
which means:
$text =~ s/\( # Match an opening bracket
([^)])* # Capture non closing bracket
# characters and store into $1
\) # Match a closing bracket
/
$1 # Replace all we've matched
# with $1
/g; # Option: Global replace
Take care,
Jonathan Paton
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