$_ = "1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0";
/(.*)(\s.*){4}/;
print "$1\n";-----Original Message----- From: Aaron J Mackey [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, October 14, 2002 7:19 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: correctly rebuilding a whitespace-split string Someone have a more "perlish", elegant, or just plain faster way of doing something like this: split a string on white space, pop off the last 4 fields (perhaps to be used elsewhere), and then "rebuild" the original string with the correct amount of intervening whitespace. One method: $_ = <DATA>; @d = splice(split, -4); # I always know that the last 4 fields # should be removed ... # this next line is the one to focus on: $str = join("", (split(/(\s+)/, $_, scalar(@d) + 1))[0..2*$#d]); ok($str, "This is the string I want"); __DATA__ This is the string I want AND THIS IS BOLLOCKS __END__ method 2: ($str) = m/^(\S+(?:\s+\S+){$#d})/; Thanks, -Aaron
