Question

I have followin code in one legacy script:

while (<FPTR>)  # While still input lines in the file...
{
  if($_ =~ /\x1b&d@
/)
  {
    $aa=$_;
    $aa =~ s/\x1b&d@
/
\x1b&d@/;
    print STDOUT $aa;
  }
...
}

Could you please explain – what doe this code do and how to replace it with correct code?
I do not like that there is a line feed in “if” and “=~”.
Is it possible to change this code?

Answer 1

Assuming the INPUT_RECORD_SEPARATOR has not been redefined, the newline can probably be replaced by $. Then, you should be able to chomp the copy of the input line to remove the newline. Then prepend \n to the output.

while (<FPTR>)  # While still input lines in the file... 
{ 
  if (/\x1b&d@$/) { 
    $aa = $_; 
    chomp $aa;
    print STDOUT "\n" . $aa;
  } 
... 
} 

This would simplify the code by eliminating multiple copies of your regex.