Matching hyphens in file path to extract zip code

Anonymous Monk has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hi Monks!

I need to extract the zip code from a strange file path,I have a solution, just want to ask if there is a better way of doing this. here is the sample code to show my version of the regular expression I am using:

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;


print "\n";


my $file_1 = '-/yf/-/22211_01_09_2000_XYz.pdf';
# Just to show that the "hyphen" can be in any place in the path.
my $file_2  = '_/gt/-/02239_04_04_1989_PkW.pdf';
my $file_3  = '-/xy/-/02239_04_04_1989_PkW.pdf';

my ($zip) = $file_1 =~ /^[\w\-]+\/[\w\-]+\/[\w\-]+\/(\d{5})_/;

print  "\n\n *$zip* \n\n\n";
[download]

Thanks for looking!

Comment on Matching hyphens in file path to extract zip code Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Matching hyphens in file path to extract zip code by haukex (Archbishop) on Feb 05, 2020 at 14:59 UTC
Is the ZIP code always at the beginning of the filename? You can use the core module File::Basename to strip off the path: `use warnings; use strict; use File::Basename qw/fileparse/; my @files = ( '-/yf/-/22211_01_09_2000_XYz.pdf', '_/gt/-/02239_04_04_1989_PkW.pdf', '-/xy/-/02239_04_04_1989_PkW.pdf' ); for my $file (@files) { my $bn = fileparse($file); my ($zip) = $bn =~ /^(\d{5})\D/; print "$file => $zip\n"; }` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: Matching hyphens in file path to extract zip code by Anonymous Monk on Feb 05, 2020 at 15:13 UTC
I like that option too, just a little more code.	[reply]
Re^3: Matching hyphens in file path to extract zip code by haukex (Archbishop) on Feb 05, 2020 at 15:17 UTC
just a little more code Not significantly, I just wrote it more verbosely. `use File::Basename; my ($zip) = fileparse($file) =~ /^(\d{5})\D/;` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re^4: Matching hyphens in file path to extract zip code by Anonymous Monk on Feb 05, 2020 at 15:28 UTC
Re^5: Matching hyphens in file path to extract zip code by Anonymous Monk on Feb 05, 2020 at 23:24 UTC
Re: Matching hyphens in file path to extract zip code by hippo (Bishop) on Feb 05, 2020 at 15:28 UTC
just want to ask if there is a better way of doing this That depends on what makes one solution "better" than another and also how representative your sample set is. use strict; use warnings; use Test::More; my @set = ( { file => '-/yf/-/22211_01_09_2000_XYz.pdf', zip => '22211' }, { file => '_/gt/-/02239_04_04_1989_PkW.pdf', zip => '02239' }, { file => '-/xy/-/02239_04_04_1989_PkW.pdf', zip => '02239' }, ); plan tests => 2 * @set; for my $datum (@set) { is zip_substr ($datum->{file}), $datum->{zip}, "Substr for $datum- +>{file}"; is zip_regex ($datum->{file}), $datum->{zip}, "Regex for $datum- +>{file}"; } sub zip_substr { return substr (shift, 7, 5); } sub zip_regex { my ($zip) = shift =~ m#/(\d{5})_#a; return $zip; } [download]	[reply] [d/l]
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