http://qs321.pair.com?node_id=486207

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

I am trying to check if a field value has a date in the first part of the value and if it does then delete that part of the value: 
(08/04/05) Information here etc...

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To look like this: 
Information here etc...

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My attempt is not working. Please advise. 
if($field =~ /d2\/d2\/d2/)
{ 
    s/1//;
}

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Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Take out date part of my field value
by socketdave (Curate) on Aug 24, 2005 at 14:45 UTC
    $field =~ s/\(\d{2}\/\d{2}\/\d{2}\)//;
    This will strip out the parentheses and the date. You were on the right track, but regex quantifiers (other than *, + and ?) use {}.

    Hope this helps.
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      ++ the only thing I would change is the delimitter ... then no need to escape the slash. 

      $field =~ s#\(\d{2}/\d{2}/\d{2}\)##;

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      -derby
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Re: Take out date part of my field value
by pbeckingham (Parson) on Aug 24, 2005 at 14:41 UTC

    Simply substitute nothing for a pattern that matches your date. You may need to modify the pattern, and you probably should check out some of the excellent pages on regular expressions. 

    $field =~ s/^\(\d\d\/\d\d\/\d\d\)\s+//;

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    pbeckingham - typist, perishable vertebrate.
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Re: Take out date part of my field value
by davidrw (Prior) on Aug 24, 2005 at 14:53 UTC
    slight variation the above for legibility (avoids having to escape the slashes): 
    $field =~ s#^\(\d{2}/\d{2}/\d{2}\)\s+##;

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Re: Take out date part of my field value
by punkish (Priest) on Aug 24, 2005 at 17:03 UTC 
    d2   # matches the letter 'd' followed by the number '2'
     # not what you want
d{2} # matches the letter 'd' at least and at most 2 times
     # this is what you want

s/1//; # replaces the number '1' with nothing
       # not what you want
s/$1// # does what you want

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    --

    when small people start casting long shadows, it is time to go to bed
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Re: Take out date part of my field value
by sapnac (Beadle) on Aug 24, 2005 at 20:29 UTC 
    Try this;

$field =~ s/\d+\/\d+\/\d+//g;


Hope it helps!

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