String substitution (not regular expressions)

[drl]

Hi.

I was answering a question in thread http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/sus...tml#post856348 and thought I would post a general solution here because the question was not SuSE-specific. See the thread for details and background.

Here is a driver script for the perl code in attached file p1.txt:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

# @(#) s1	Demonstrate non-regex string replacement, perl.

# Utility functions: print-as-echo, print-line-with-visual-space, debug.
# export PATH="/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin"
pe() { for _i;do printf "%s" "$_i";done; printf "\n"; }
pl() { pe;pe "-----" ;pe "$*"; }
db() { ( printf " db, ";for _i;do printf "%s" "$_i";done;printf "\n" ) >&2 ; }
db() { : ; }
C=$HOME/bin/context && [ -f $C ] && $C perl ./p1
[ -x $HOME/bin/divepm ] && ( pe " perl module versions:";divepm -q -i ./p1 )

pl " Input data file data1:"
cat data1

pl " Results:"
./p1 abc def data1

pl " Input data file data2:"
cat data2

pl " Replace special characters (usually need shell quoting):"
./p1 "!@#$%^&*()_+=-" "|ah|" data2

pl " Input file data3:"
cat data3

pl " Replace, like sed default, no global:"
./p1 abc def data3

pl " Replace, global replace:"
./p1 -g abc def data3

exit 0

which produces:

% ./s1

Environment: LC_ALL = C, LANG = C
(Versions displayed with local utility "version")
OS, ker|rel, machine: Linux, 2.6.26-2-amd64, x86_64
Distribution        : Debian GNU/Linux 5.0.8 (lenny) 
GNU bash 3.2.39
perl 5.10.0
./p1 - ( local: RepRev 1.9, ./p1, 2011-08-13 )
 perl module versions:
 1.06	warnings
 1.04	strict
 1.11	feature

-----
 Input data file data1:
___abc___

-----
 Results:
___def___

-----
 Input data file data2:
___///___
___!@#$%^&*()_+=-___

-----
 Replace special characters (usually need shell quoting):
___///___
___|ah|___

-----
 Input file data3:
___abc___abc___abc

-----
 Replace, like sed default, no global:
___def___abc___abc

-----
 Replace, global replace:
___def___def___def

You'll need to download the file p1.txt, save as p1, add execute permission, and then copy/paste the data files and shell script to run the demo on your machine.

Best wishes ... cheers, drl

( edit: minor cosmetic changes; remove code for domestic version )