Question

$value = $list[1] ~ s/\D//g;

syntax error at try1.pl line 53, near “] ~”

Execution of try1.pl aborted due to compilation errors.

I am trying to extract the digits from the second element of @list, and store it into $value.

Answer 1

You mean =~, not ~. ~ is a unary bitwise negation operator.

A couple of ways to do this:

($value) = $list[1] =~ /(\d+)/;

Both sets of parens are important; only if there are capturing parentheses does the match operation return actual content instead of just an indication of success, and then only in list context (provided by the list-assign operator ()=).

Or the common idiom of copy and then modify:

($value = $list[1]) =~ s/\D//;