On Thu, 2005-05-12 at 12:22, David Storrs wrote:
> On May 12, 2005, at 11:59 AM, Autrijus Tang wrote:
> > On Thu, May 12, 2005 at 04:53:06PM +0200, "TSa (Thomas Sandlaï)"
> > wrote:
> >> Autrijus Tang wrote:
> >>
> >>> pugs> split /(..)*/, 1234567890
> >>> ('', '12', '34', '56', '78', '90')
> >> Why the empty string match at the start?
> > I don't know, I didn't invent that! :-)
> > $ perl -le 'print join ",", split /(..)/, 123'
> > ,12,3
>
> This makes sense when I think about what split is doing, but it is
> surprising at first glance. Perhaps this should be included as an
> example in the docs?
perldoc -f split says:
"Splits a string into a list of strings and returns that list.
By default, empty leading fields are preserved, and empty
trailing ones are deleted [...] If PATTERN is also omitted,
splits on whitespace (after skipping any leading whitespace).
[...] Empty leading (or trailing) fields are produced when there
are positive width matches at the beginning (or end) of the
string [...] As a special case, specifying a PATTERN of space ('
') will split on white space just as "split" with no arguments
does. Thus, "split(' ')" can be used to emulate awk's default
behavior, whereas "split(/ /)" will give you as many null
initial fields as there are leading spaces [...]"
And there you have it.
--
Aaron Sherman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Senior Systems Engineer and Toolsmith
"It's the sound of a satellite saying, 'get me down!'" -Shriekback
