Perl split Function

The Perl split function splits a string into an array. A string is splitted based on delimiter specified by pattern. By default, it whitespace is assumed as delimiter.

Split /pattern/, variableName

In this example, split returns a list of strings. The delimiter is (-). It means string is splitted at (-).

my $str = "Cu-K-Na-Hg-Pb-Li";  
my @break = split /-/, $str;  
print "@break\n";

Limit number of parts

We can limit the number of parts to be splitted for a string.

In this example, string splits in 3 parts.

my $str = "Cu-K-Na-Hg-Pb-Li";  
my @break = split(/-/, $str, 3);  
print "@break\n";

split on Multiple Characters

We can split a character at more than one delimiter. In the following example, we have split the string at (=) and (,).

1. my $str = 'Vishal=18Sept,Anu=11May,Juhi=5Jul';
2. my @words = split /[=,]/, $str;
3. print "@words\n";

As they are key-value pairs, we can assign the result into a hash instead of an array.

1. use Data::Dumper qw(Dumper);
2. my $str = 'Vishal=18th Sept,Anu=11th May,Juhi=5th Jul';
3. my %words = split /[=,]/, $str;
4. print Dumper \%words;

split on Empty String

Split on empty string means the string will split at every place where it will find an empty string. There is an empty string, between every two characters. It means it will return the original string split into individual characters.

1. my $str = "rookienerd";
2. my @break = split //, $str;
3. print "@break\n";

join Function

Perl join character, joins elements into a single string using a delimiter pattern to separate each element. It is opposite of split.

join 'pattern', variableName

In the following example, we have joined in three different ways.

First, we are joining (:) in between each elements of array.

Second, we will join (- vowels) with the output of first one.

Third, we added two more characters in the original array.

1. my @vowels = ('A', 'E', 'I');
2. my $str = join ':', @vowels;
3. print "$str\n";
4. my $data = join "-", $str, "vowels";
5. print "$data\n";
6. $str = join '', @vowels, 'OU';
7. print "$str\n";