Replacing $mon with Jan, Feb, Mar by regex or other means

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

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Replacing $mon with Jan, Feb, Mar by regex or other means by Abigail-II (Bishop) on Apr 25, 2003 at 09:58 UTC
`use POSIX 'strftime'; print strftime "%m" => localtime;` [download] Or you could keep it simple and do `print +(qw /Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec/)[$mon +]` [download] Abigail	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Replacing $mon with Jan, Feb, Mar by regex or other means by Bilbo (Pilgrim) on Apr 25, 2003 at 09:57 UTC
Why not just put them in an array: `my @months = qw(Jan Feb Mar Apr ...)` [download] Then just use `$months[$mon]`.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Replacing $mon with Jan, Feb, Mar by regex or other means by zakb (Pilgrim) on Apr 25, 2003 at 11:12 UTC
It may be worth considering that all of the above will be potentially incorrect for anything other than English, with the possible exception of the POSIX solution. Abigail-II, would the POSIX version use the correct translation for the current locale (e.g. Fev for Fevrier = February in french)?	[reply]
Re: Replacing $mon with Jan, Feb, Mar by regex or other means by Abigail-II (Bishop) on Apr 25, 2003 at 11:24 UTC
It should, but whether it does might depend on how `strftime` is implemented on your platform. Perl just calls the system library with the same name to do the work. Abigail	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Replacing $mon with Jan, Feb, Mar by regex or other means by Tanalis (Curate) on Apr 25, 2003 at 10:04 UTC
There are two possible ways I'd do this .. `$mon` is always going to be a numeric index, between 0 and 11. We can set up an array of months, then use this index to select out each month in turn: `my @months = ( qw/Jan Feb Mar Apr May ... Dec/ ); my $month = $months[$mon];` [download] Alternatively, and definitely overkill, would be to use the Date::Calc module: this contains a `Month_to_Text` function that can be used to do the same job: `my $month = substr(Month_to_Text($mon + 1), 0, 3);` [download] On reflection, that's most definitely not as clear, or concise, and I much prefer the first solution. Just a couple of ideas. -- Foxcub A friend is someone who can see straight through you, yet still enjoy the view. (Anon)	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Replacing $mon with Jan, Feb, Mar by regex or other means by BrowserUk (Patriarch) on Apr 25, 2003 at 10:14 UTC
Put the 3-char abbrevs into a string and use substr to pick out the right one. `perl -e"for my $mon (0..11) { print substr('JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSe +pOctNovDec', $mon*3, 3), $/; }" Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec` [download] Switch the quotes under unix. Examine what is said, not who speaks. 1) When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. 2) The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible 3) Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Arthur C. Clarke.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Re: Replacing $mon with Jan, Feb, Mar by regex or other means by RMGir (Prior) on Apr 25, 2003 at 11:48 UTC
I know you probably weren't serious. But it turns out that your approach isn't as slow as I thought it would be. It's still slower than using an array, but not terribly. Benchmark: running inlineArrayLookup, preBuiltArrayLookup, strftimeLoo +kup, substrLookup, each for at least 2 CPU seconds... inlineArrayLookup: 2 wallclock secs ( 2.12 usr + -0.01 sys = 2.11 CP +U) @ 543540.28/s (n=1146870) preBuiltArrayLookup: 1 wallclock secs ( 2.04 usr + -0.01 sys = 2.03 +CPU) @ 588310.34/s (n=1194270) strftimeLookup: 3 wallclock secs ( 1.76 usr + 0.37 sys = 2.13 CPU) +@ 216666.20/s (n=461499) substrLookup: 2 wallclock secs ( 2.09 usr + 0.00 sys = 2.09 CPU) @ +465374.16/s (n=972632) Rate strftimeLookup substrLookup inlineArrayLo +okup preBuiltArrayLookup strftimeLookup 216666/s -- -53% +-60% -63% substrLookup 465374/s 115% -- +-14% -21% inlineArrayLookup 543540/s 151% 17% + -- -8% preBuiltArrayLookup 588310/s 172% 26% + 8% -- [download] Comparing the strftime version isn't totally fair, since it's not a simple "month->string" converter, but requires a localtime list. But as others have pointed out, it will do locales correctly. Read more... (1345 Bytes) -- Mike Edit: Added strftime variant which I had overlooked. Edit by tye, change PRE to CODE around long lines	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Replacing $mon with Jan, Feb, Mar by regex or other means by Abigail-II (Bishop) on Apr 25, 2003 at 12:06 UTC
To make a better comparison, you should `strftimeLookup` do a `getMonthNumber` as well. Now it's the only case that isn't penalized by an extra subroutine call. Or you could eliminate the call from all cases, the lookup time won't be different depending on the number of the month. Just use a fixed month number (but don't hardcode it as a literal, or else the compiler might pre-calculate some calculations). Abigail	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Re: Replacing $mon with Jan, Feb, Mar by regex or other means by RMGir (Prior) on Apr 25, 2003 at 12:14 UTC
Re: Re: Re: Replacing $mon with Jan, Feb, Mar by regex or other means by BrowserUk (Patriarch) on Apr 25, 2003 at 12:49 UTC
I do use this, though I usually put the constant information into a constant. `use constant MONTHS=> 'JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec';` [download] You'll find that this has little if any effect on the performance. Examine what is said, not who speaks. 1) When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. 2) The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible 3) Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Arthur C. Clarke.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Replacing $mon with Jan, Feb, Mar by regex or other means by gawatkins (Monsignor) on Apr 25, 2003 at 11:49 UTC
jonnyfolk, The best way that I have found to do this was using a hash. `my %month3letter = ( 12 => 'Jan', 1 => 'Feb', 2 => 'Mar', 3 => 'Apr', 4 => 'May', 5 => 'Jun', 6 => 'Jul', 7 => 'Aug', 8 => 'Sep', 9 => 'Oct', 10 => 'Nov', 11 => 'Dec' );` [download] Or-well mabye I just like hashes, anyway I have had a great deal of success with it. Thanks, Greg	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Replacing $mon with Jan, Feb, Mar by regex or other means by Mr. Muskrat (Canon) on Apr 25, 2003 at 14:10 UTC
Here's what I said in the CB: `my $mon = qw(Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec)[(localtime)[4]];` Create ~~an anonymous array~~ a list containing the abbreviated month names and return the ~~array~~ list element indexed by the zero based month number returned by `(localtime)[4]`. Updated: chromatic caught my blunder.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Replacing $mon with Jan, Feb, Mar by regex or other means by jonnyfolk (Vicar) on Apr 25, 2003 at 20:09 UTC
Well, in the CB Coruscate came up with the regex: `($mon) = localtime =~ /\A.{3} (.{3})/` [download] Does anybody else think this is a good idea?	[reply] [d/l]


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