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I am trying to write a big script but I am stuck on a part. I want to sprit an array based on ".."

From the script I got this:

print @coordinates;
gene            complement(872..1288)

my desired output:

complement   872  1288

I tried:

   1) my @answer = split(.., @coordinates)
    print("@answer\n");   

   2) my @answer = split /../, @coordinates;

   3) print +(split /\../)[-1],[-2],[-3] while <@coordinates>

   4) foreach my $anwser ( @coordinates )
    {$anwser =~ s/../"\t"/;
    print  $anwser;}

    5) my @answer = split(/../,          "complement(872..1288)"); #to see if the printed array is problematic. 
    which prints:
      )          )          )          )          )          )          )          )          )          
    
    6) my @answer = split /"gene            "/, @coordinates; # I tried to "catch" the entire output's spaces and tabs
    which prints
    0000000000000000000000000000000001000000000100000000

But none of them works. Does anyone has any idea how to step over this issue?
Ps, unfortunately, I can't run my script right now on Linux so I used this website to run my script. I hope this is not the reason why I didn't get my desired output.

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  • 1
    I think you need to escape the dots like so: /\.\./. Otherwise, a dot matches "any character". Commented Mar 23, 2020 at 11:44
  • Thanks for the reply. I did my @answer = split(\.\., @coordinates); and prints this 0000000000000000000000000000000001000000000100000000 Commented Mar 23, 2020 at 12:00

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
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my $RE_COMPLEMENT = qr{(complement)\((\d+)\.\.(\d+)\)}msx;
for my $item (@coordinates) {
    my ($head, $i, $j) = $item =~ $RE_COMPLEMENT;
    if (defined($head) && defined($i) && defined($j)) {
        print("$head\t$i\t$j\n");
    }
}
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3 Comments

Thanks a lot for the reply. I got exactly what I want.
Use qr when compiling a regex outside of a match, after the binding operator, it's more standard to use m.
You use the /msx there, but I don't think you want any of them. There is no ^ or $, so the /m has no effect. There is no '.' meta character, so the '/s' has no effect. And, since there's no whitespace, the '/x' has no effect. Not a huge deal, but it's often to exclude extraneous bits in examples to people who are already struggling. Otherwise, they tend to think it's important to the solution.
1

split operates on a scalar, not on an array.

my $string = 'gene    complement(872..1288)';
my @parts  = split /\.\./, $string;
print $parts[0];  # gene    complement(872
print $parts[1];  # 1288)

To get the desired output, you can use a substitution:

my $string = 'gene    complement(872..1288)';
$string =~ s/gene +|\)//g;
$string =~ s/\.\./ /;
$string =~ s/\(/ /;
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3 Comments

First of all, thank you for your reply. I typed my @parts = split /\.\./, @coordinates; as I got this array and I got 0000000000000000000000000000000001000000000100000000
The second argument of split can't be an array.
I see. Thanks a lot once again.
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Desired effect can be achieved with

use of tr operator to replace '(.)' => ' '

then splitting data string into element on space

storing only required part of array

output elements of array joined with tabulation

use strict;
use warnings;
use feature 'say';

my $data = <DATA>;

chomp $data;
$data =~ tr/(.)/ /;

my @elements = (split ' ', $data)[1..3];

say join "\t", @elements;

__DATA__
gene            complement(872..1288)

Or as an alternative solution with only substitutions (without splitting data string into array)

use strict;
use warnings;
use feature 'say';

my $data = <DATA>;

chomp $data;

$data =~ s/gene\s+//;
$data =~ s/\)//;
$data =~ s/[(.]+/\t/g;

say $data;

__DATA__
gene            complement(872..1288)

Output

complement      872     1288
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6 Comments

First of all, thank you once again for your help and for the explanations. I tried both ways and works perfectly. To be honest the first seems to be better as at the end, you will obtain 3 values at @element and It will be easier to manipulate when you are writing a big script. Just a last thing. At your first solution I got the following warning I Use of uninitialized value $elements[2] in join or string at txt.perl line 33, <DATA> line 33. Is it because I am using an online Perl executor?
@KGee -- you need see <DATA> line 33, what is there? I guess that it could be just an empty line and the code can not split empty line into elements, if no elements then no way to join them.
@ Polar Bear Finally I found it.... elements = (split ' ', $data)[1..3]; should be elements = (split ' ', $data)[0..2]; Thanks again for your time!!!!
@KGee -- this would be odd. The elements after split should be -- [0]gene,[1]complement,[2]872,[3]1288. If you get assigned elements [0..2] then in such case your data before split do not have 'gene'. I am puzzled how it could happen. Are you mixed code from 1st and 2nd examples? Otherwise I do not see how it could happen.
@KGee -- Online: test #1, test #2.
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