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Hello All,

I am trying to write a perl script which removes the contents between
two plain double quotes. (I am parsing C and C++ files.) What I mean
by plain is, double quote (") should not have been preceeded by single
quote (') or back slash(\).

For this I wrote the following code, which is serving the purpose but
partially.

************************************************** *****************************
#!/usr/bin/perl
open FILE , "./y.c";
while (<FILE>)
{
$temp .= $_;
}

$temp1 = $temp;

while ($temp && $temp =~ /[^'\\]("([^"])*")/s)
{
$find = $1;
$temp = $';
if (!($2 =~ /['\\]/)){
$temp1 =~ s/\Q$find//;
}
}

print $temp1;
************************************************** ****************************

So if I have a .c file like this:
************************************************** ****************************
#include <stdio.h>

int main ()
{
char c = '"';
printf("I should be removed \n");
printf ("Testing under proggress
go ahead \n");

/* "this should be \" removed" I should be here "but kill me here " */
}
************************************************** ***************************
output should look like
************************************************** ********************
#include <stdio.h>

int main ()
{
char c = '"';
printf();
printf ();

/* I should be here */
}
************************************************** ****************************
but with my version of perl script I get the output something like
this:
************************************************** ****************************
#include <stdio.h>

int main ()
{
char c = '"';
printf();
printf ();

/* "this should be \" removedbut kill me here " */
************************************************** **************************

Can someone help me to get this regular expression correct??

Thanks
-Vittal

Vittal <> wrote:

> I am trying to write a perl script which removes the contents
> between two plain double quotes. (I am parsing C and C++ files.)
> What I mean by plain is, double quote (") should not have been
> preceeded by single quote (') or back slash(\).

The following code does what you asked for, but I'm not convinced
that it does what you want. I can easily construct text that will
yield undesirable results.

Maybe someone more knowledgeable than me will point out a better
solution.




use strict;
use warnings;

my $text;
{
local $/ = undef;
$text = <DATA>;
}

$text =~ s/
(?<!['\\]) " # " not preceded by ' or \
.*?
(?<!['\\]) "
//gsx;

print $text;



__DATA__
#include <stdio.h>

int main ()
{
char c = '"';
printf("I should be removed \n");
printf ("Testing under proggress
go ahead \n");

/* "this should be \" removed" I should be here "but kill me here "
*/

/* more test text...
"this
should
be \" removed"
I
should be
here "but kill
me here " */

}

On Mon, 21 Mar 2005, wrote:

Vittal <> wrote:
>
>> I am trying to write a perl script which removes the contents
>> between two plain double quotes. (I am parsing C and C++ files.)
>> What I mean by plain is, double quote (") should not have been
>> preceeded by single quote (') or back slash(\).
>
> The following code does what you asked for, but I'm not convinced
> that it does what you want. I can easily construct text that will
> yield undesirable results.

The OP could also try the CPAN Text::Balanced module. The requirement
of a quoting single quote is just weird, but Text::Balanced can
probably handle it since it lets you specify any number of escape
characters.

Ted