use Perl

• Let the regex engine do the work... (Score:1)

  by jj (2990) on 2008.12.24 11:27 (#66612) Homepage Journal

  I don't really know any Perl 6 syntax, but this was my Perl 5 version:
  
  #! /Users/jj/bin/perl5.10.0
  
  use strict;
  use warnings;
  use 5.010;
  
  say "Please enter a phone number:";
  my $number = <>;
  chomp $number;
  
  $number =~ s/2/[ABC]/g;
  $number =~ s/3/[DEF]/g;
  $number =~ s/4/[GHI]/g;
  $number =~ s/5/[JKL]/g;
  $number =~ s/6/[MNO]/g;
  $number =~ s/7/[PRS]/g;
  $number =~ s/8/[TUV]/g;
  $number =~ s/9/[WXY]/g;
  
  open WORDLIST,'<','wordlist.txt' or die "Cannot open wordlist.txt: $!";
  
  [<WORDLIST>] ~~ /^($number)\s*$/i and say uc $1;
  
  __END__
  
  This converts the number into a regex, e.g. "42" would become "[GHI][ABC]" and then uses a smart match to go through the list of words.
  
  Would this approach look any different in Perl 6? (it would be good if there was a way to smart match against the filehandle without having to load it).
  
  JJ

  Reply to This

  • Re: (Score:1)

    by colomon (8994)

    Ha! That's brilliant.

    I've no idea if that basic approach will work in current Perl 6. I may give it a try if I get a chance...