Question

Similar to this, how do I achieve the same in Perl?

I want to convert:

C:\Dir1\SubDir1\` to `C:/Dir1/SubDir1/

I am trying to follow examples given here, but when I say something like:

my $replacedString= ~s/$dir/"/"; # $dir is C:\Dir1\SubDir1\

I get a compilation error. I’ve tried escaping the /, but I then get other compiler errors.

Answer 1

= ~ is very different from =~. The first is assignment and bitwise negation, the second is the binding operator used with regexes.

What you want is this:

$string_to_change =~ s/pattern_to_look_for/string_to_replace_with/g;

Note the use of the global /g option to make changes throughout your string. In your case, looks like you need:

$dir =~ s/\\/\//g;

If you want a more readable regex, you can exchange the delimiter: s#\\#/#g;

If you want to preserve your original string, you can copy it before doing the replacement. You can also use transliteration: tr#\\#/# — in which case you need no global option.

In short:

$dir =~ tr#\\#/#;

Documentation:

• Perl operators
• Regular expressions