Essential One-Liners: Walter C. Mankowski

One-Liners 101 Advanced Perl One-Liners Summary Examples
Essential One-Liners
Walter C. Mankowski
Department of Computer Science Drexel University Philadelphia, PA
YAPC::Chicago June 16, 2008
Walt Mankowski
Why One-Liners?
Perls got a reputation for producing unreadable, unmaintainable code.
Walt Mankowski
Why One-Liners?
Perls got a reputation for producing unreadable, unmaintainable code. A lot of work has been done on tools and techniques to get around that.
Walt Mankowski
Why One-Liners?
Perls got a reputation for producing unreadable, unmaintainable code. A lot of work has been done on tools and techniques to get around that. Perls still great for throwing together quick and dirty little programs.
Walt Mankowski
Why One-Liners?
Perls got a reputation for producing unreadable, unmaintainable code. A lot of work has been done on tools and techniques to get around that. Perls still great for throwing together quick and dirty little programs. Nothings quicker and dirtier than the one-liner.
Walt Mankowski
But Im a Java programmer!
Text les are everywhere. The Unix command-line environment is incredibly powerful:
everything is ASCII create new programs by connecting small, simple existing programs in pipelines less, wc, sort, xargs, sed, tr, cut, tee, etc.
Perl ts really well into this niche.
Walt Mankowski
Freeing your time for more important things . . .
Walt Mankowski
Hello, world Newlines Loops
Perl One-Liners 101
Walt Mankowski
Perl One-Liners 101

(Cell phones o?)
Walt Mankowski
Hello, world
% perl -e print "Hello, world.\n"
Walt Mankowski
Hello, world
% perl -e print "Hello, world.\n" Hello, world. %
Walt Mankowski
Hello, world
% perl -e print "Hello, world.\n" Hello, world. % -e to enter the program on the command line
Walt Mankowski
Hello, world
% perl -e print "Hello, world.\n" Hello, world. % -e to enter the program on the command line enclose program in single quotes to avoid shell expansion
Walt Mankowski
Hello, world
% perl -e print "Hello, world.\n" Hello, world. % -e to enter the program on the command line enclose program in single quotes to avoid shell expansion you dont need the nal semicolon
Walt Mankowski
Hello, world
% perl -e print "Hello, world.\n" Hello, world. % -e to enter the program on the command line enclose program in single quotes to avoid shell expansion you dont need the nal semicolon no strict
Walt Mankowski
Hello, world
% perl -e print "Hello, world.\n" Hello, world. % -e to enter the program on the command line enclose program in single quotes to avoid shell expansion you dont need the nal semicolon no strict no warnings
Walt Mankowski
Hello, world
% perl -e print "Hello, world.\n" Hello, world. % -e to enter the program on the command line enclose program in single quotes to avoid shell expansion you dont need the nal semicolon no strict no warnings no tests
Walt Mankowski
Thats it!
Thats all you need to know.
Walt Mankowski
Thats it!
Thats all you need to know. The rest of this talk is all about syntactic sugar to make one-liners easier to write.
Walt Mankowski
Perl programmers love syntactic sugar.
Walt Mankowski
Automatic newlines with -l
The -l ag automatically adds a newline to whatever you print. Without -l perl -e print "Hello, world.\n"
Walt Mankowski
Automatic newlines with -l
The -l ag automatically adds a newline to whatever you print. Without -l perl -e print "Hello, world.\n" With -l perl -le print "Hello, world."
Walt Mankowski
say what?
Perl 5.10 introduced a new builtin function, say, that works just like print except that it automatically adds a newline.
Walt Mankowski
say what?
Perl 5.10 introduced a new builtin function, say, that works just like print except that it automatically adds a newline. Sadly, say doesnt work with -e: % perl -e say "Hello, world." String found where operator expected at -e line 1, near "say "Hello, world."" (Do you need to predeclare say?) syntax error at -e line 1, near "say "Hello, world."" Execution of -e aborted due to compilation errors. %
Walt Mankowski
say what? (continued)
To avoid breaking backward compatibility, say is turned o by default in 5.10.
Walt Mankowski
say what? (continued)
To avoid breaking backward compatibility, say is turned o by default in 5.10. To turn it on from the command line, use -E instead of -e: % perl -E say "Hello, world." Hello, world. %
Walt Mankowski
Writing Loops
Suppose you want to see if your team is following your new coding standards that lines cant be longer than 80 characters. Heres one way to write that: perl -e while (<>) {print if length > 80} *.pl
Walt Mankowski
The -n ag
That gets tedious to write that all the time, so perl has a -n ag that automatically puts a loop around your code. Its equivalent to while {<>} { ... # your code goes here }
Walt Mankowski
The -n ag
That gets tedious to write that all the time, so perl has a -n ag that automatically puts a loop around your code. Its equivalent to while {<>} { ... # your code goes here } Without -n perl -e while (<>) {print if length > 80} *.pl
Walt Mankowski
The -n ag
That gets tedious to write that all the time, so perl has a -n ag that automatically puts a loop around your code. Its equivalent to while {<>} { ... # your code goes here } Without -n perl -e while (<>) {print if length > 80} *.pl With -n perl -ne print if length > 80 *.pl
Walt Mankowski
BEGIN and END blocks
If you want to do pre- or post-processing when using the -n ag, use BEGIN and END blocks. For example, if the le nums contains 1 2 3 4
Walt Mankowski
BEGIN and END blocks (continued)
Sum % perl -lne $s += $_; END{print $s} nums 10 %
Walt Mankowski
BEGIN and END blocks (continued)
Sum % perl -lne $s += $_; END{print $s} nums 10 % Product % perl -lne BEGIN{$p = 1} $p *= $_; END{print $p} \ nums 24 %
Walt Mankowski
Writing Loops (continued)
Suppose you want to convert an existing le to lowercase. Now that you know about the -n ag, you might try writing it like this: perl -ne tr/A-Z/a-z/; print foo
Walt Mankowski
Writing Loops (continued)
Suppose you want to convert an existing le to lowercase. Now that you know about the -n ag, you might try writing it like this: perl -ne tr/A-Z/a-z/; print foo perl -ne tr/A-Z/a-z/; print foo >foo.out
Walt Mankowski
The -p ag
Printing each line is a common enough operation that perl has a special ag for it, the -p ag. Its equivalent to while {<>} { ... # your code goes here } continue { print or die "-p destination: $!\n"; }
Walt Mankowski
The -p ag
Printing each line is a common enough operation that perl has a special ag for it, the -p ag. Its equivalent to while {<>} { ... # your code goes here } continue { print or die "-p destination: $!\n"; } Its similar to the -n ag, except -p prints out each line: Without -p perl -ne tr/A-Z/a-z/; print foo
Walt Mankowski
The -p ag
Printing each line is a common enough operation that perl has a special ag for it, the -p ag. Its equivalent to while {<>} { ... # your code goes here } continue { print or die "-p destination: $!\n"; } Its similar to the -n ag, except -p prints out each line: Without -p perl -ne tr/A-Z/a-z/; print foo With -p perl -pe tr/A-Z/a-z/ foo
Walt Mankowski Essential One-Liners
Editing les in-place Autosplit Using modules Input record separators
Advanced Perl One-Liners
Walt Mankowski
Editing les in-place

Instead of just printing out the le, one thing you might want to do with the -p ag is make the changes directly to the le. Perls -i ag does exactly that:
Walt Mankowski

Instead of just printing out the le, one thing you might want to do with the -p ag is make the changes directly to the le. Perls -i ag does exactly that: Print to stdout perl -pe s/foo/bar/ a.pl
Walt Mankowski

Instead of just printing out the le, one thing you might want to do with the -p ag is make the changes directly to the le. Perls -i ag does exactly that: Print to stdout perl -pe s/foo/bar/ a.pl Edit a.pl in-place perl -pi -e s/foo/bar/ a.pl
Walt Mankowski

Instead of just printing out the le, one thing you might want to do with the -p ag is make the changes directly to the le. Perls -i ag does exactly that: Print to stdout perl -pe s/foo/bar/ a.pl Edit a.pl in-place perl -pi -e s/foo/bar/ a.pl Editing multiple les perl -pi -e s/foo/bar/ *.pl
Walt Mankowski
Obviously the -i ag is dangerous since it clobbers whatever was originally in the le. So Perl lets you specify a backup le when using -i.
Walt Mankowski
Obviously the -i ag is dangerous since it clobbers whatever was originally in the le. So Perl lets you specify a backup le when using -i. Edit a.pl in-place perl -pi -e s/foo/bar/ a.pl
Walt Mankowski
Obviously the -i ag is dangerous since it clobbers whatever was originally in the le. So Perl lets you specify a backup le when using -i. Edit a.pl in-place perl -pi -e s/foo/bar/ a.pl Original le saved in a.pl.bak perl -p -i.bak -e s/foo/bar/ a.pl
Walt Mankowski
Automatically splitting les
Use the -a ag to automatically split each line (like AWK). Default is to split on ; use the -F ag to split on something else.
Walt Mankowski
Use the -a ag to automatically split each line (like AWK). Default is to split on ; use the -F ag to split on something else. Print processes whose parents are init ps axl | perl -ane print if $F[3] == 1
Walt Mankowski
Use the -a ag to automatically split each line (like AWK). Default is to split on ; use the -F ag to split on something else. Print processes whose parents are init ps axl | perl -ane print if $F[3] == 1 Print all userids and user names perl -aln -F: -e print "$F[2]\t$F[0]" /etc/passwd
Walt Mankowski
Using modules
Instead of explicitly useing a module, you can load a module from the command line with the -M ag. The following programs both do the same thing: Use module perl -e use LWP::Simple; getprint "http://pghpw.org"
Walt Mankowski
Using modules
Instead of explicitly useing a module, you can load a module from the command line with the -M ag. The following programs both do the same thing: Use module perl -e use LWP::Simple; getprint "http://pghpw.org" -M ag perl -MLWP::Simple -e getprint "http://pghpw.org"
Walt Mankowski
Input record separators
Perl normally reads input until it hits the input record separator, which defaults to \n and can be changed by setting $/. But in addition to setting $/ in a BEGIN block, you can also change it on the command line with the -0 ag. It sets $/ to an octal or hex number:
Walt Mankowski
Perl normally reads input until it hits the input record separator, which defaults to \n and can be changed by setting $/. But in addition to setting $/ in a BEGIN block, you can also change it on the command line with the -0 ag. It sets $/ to an octal or hex number: -0x0d carriage returns
Walt Mankowski
Perl normally reads input until it hits the input record separator, which defaults to \n and can be changed by setting $/. But in addition to setting $/ in a BEGIN block, you can also change it on the command line with the -0 ag. It sets $/ to an octal or hex number: -0x0d -0 carriage returns null character (find -print0)
Walt Mankowski
Perl normally reads input until it hits the input record separator, which defaults to \n and can be changed by setting $/. But in addition to setting $/ in a BEGIN block, you can also change it on the command line with the -0 ag. It sets $/ to an octal or hex number: -0x0d -0 -00 carriage returns null character (find -print0) paragraph mode (useful for Postx logs)
Walt Mankowski
Perl normally reads input until it hits the input record separator, which defaults to \n and can be changed by setting $/. But in addition to setting $/ in a BEGIN block, you can also change it on the command line with the -0 ag. It sets $/ to an octal or hex number: -0x0d -0 -00 -0777 carriage returns null character (find -print0) paragraph mode (useful for Postx logs) slurp in entire le
Walt Mankowski
Summary of ags
Flag -e -l -n -p -i -a -M -0
Result Execute program on command line Automatically add newlines Automatically loop Automatically loop and print each line Edit les in-place Automatically split input Use module Change input record separator
Walt Mankowski
More Information
perldoc perlrun
many more features than I covered
Walt Mankowski
More Information
perldoc perlrun
many more features than I covered
Google for perl one liners

Tom Christiansen one-liners article by Je Bay in The Perl Review One-liners 101 on IBM developerWorks many others
Walt Mankowski
Java doesnt have one-liners
Walt Mankowski
Examples!
Walt Mankowski
Palindromes
Find palindromes perl -lne print if $_ eq reverse \ /usr/share/dict/words
Walt Mankowski
Line Numbers
Print lines preceded by line number perl -ne print "$. $_" $. is a special Perl variable that contains the input line number.
Walt Mankowski
Computing Averages
Sum lines, then divide by total number of lines % perl -lne $s += $_; END{print $s/$.} nums 2.5 %
Walt Mankowski
Printing selected lines
Print lines 1020 perl -ne print if 10..20 The .. operator is magic when used in scalar context. Read the Range Operators section in perlop.
Walt Mankowski
Grep with Perl regular expressions

Poor mans grep perl -ne print if /^foobar/
Walt Mankowski

Poor mans grep perl -ne print if /^foobar/ . . . but with the full power of Perls regular expressions! Lines with foo not followed by bar perl -ne print if /foo(?!bar)/
Walt Mankowski

Poor mans grep perl -ne print if /^foobar/ . . . but with the full power of Perls regular expressions! Lines with foo not followed by bar perl -ne print if /foo(?!bar)/ Lines with bar not preceded by foo perl -ne print if /(?<!foo)bar/
Walt Mankowski

Poor mans grep perl -ne print if /^foobar/ . . . but with the full power of Perls regular expressions! Lines with foo not followed by bar perl -ne print if /foo(?!bar)/ Lines with bar not preceded by foo perl -ne print if /(?<!foo)bar/ Grep on paragraphs perl -00 -ne print if /foo(?!bar)/
Walt Mankowski Essential One-Liners
Random Numbers
Does rand() return the same sequence with the same seed on dierent platforms?
Walt Mankowski
Random Numbers
Does rand() return the same sequence with the same seed on dierent platforms? Look at the rst 5 % perl -le srand(42); print rand for 1..5 0.744525000061007 0.342701478718908 0.111085282444161 0.422338957988309 0.0811111711783106
Walt Mankowski
Random Numbers
Does rand() return the same sequence with the same seed on dierent platforms? Look at the rst 5 % perl -le srand(42); print rand for 1..5 0.744525000061007 0.342701478718908 0.111085282444161 0.422338957988309 0.0811111711783106 Try a whole bunch % perl -le srand(42); print rand for 1..100_000 \ | md5sum ac18d07f40c858bf4b23090177f6a685 Walt Mankowski Essential One-Liners
Stacking the deck
One-liners can also be used in shell scripts #!/bin/bash SEED=perl -le print int rand 0xffffffff for ((n = 10; n <= 400; n += 10)) do cmd="./wn_path_seq $n $SEED" echo $cmd $cmd done
Walt Mankowski
Add lines to le
Add line to beginning of le perl -0777 -i -ne print "first\n$_" test.txt
Walt Mankowski
Add lines to le
Add line to beginning of le perl -0777 -i -ne print "first\n$_" test.txt Same thing perl -0777 -i -pe $_= "first\n$_" test.txt
Walt Mankowski
Add lines to le
Add line to beginning of le perl -0777 -i -ne print "first\n$_" test.txt Same thing perl -0777 -i -pe $_= "first\n$_" test.txt Same thing, more obfuscated perl -0777 -i -pe s//first\n/ test.txt
Walt Mankowski
Thank you!
Walt Mankowski

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One-Liners 101 Advanced Perl One-Liners Summary Examples

YAPC::Chicago June 16, 2008

One-Liners 101 Advanced Perl One-Liners Summary Examples

Perls got a reputation for producing unreadable, unmaintainable code.

One-Liners 101 Advanced Perl One-Liners Summary Examples

One-Liners 101 Advanced Perl One-Liners Summary Examples

One-Liners 101 Advanced Perl One-Liners Summary Examples

One-Liners 101 Advanced Perl One-Liners Summary Examples

But Im a Java programmer!

Perl ts really well into this niche.

One-Liners 101 Advanced Perl One-Liners Summary Examples

Freeing your time for more important things . . .

One-Liners 101 Advanced Perl One-Liners Summary Examples

Hello, world Newlines Loops

Perl One-Liners 101

One-Liners 101 Advanced Perl One-Liners Summary Examples

Hello, world Newlines Loops

Perl One-Liners 101

One-Liners 101 Advanced Perl One-Liners Summary Examples

Hello, world Newlines Loops

% perl -e print "Hello, world.\n"

One-Liners 101 Advanced Perl One-Liners Summary Examples

Hello, world Newlines Loops

% perl -e print "Hello, world.\n" Hello, world. %

One-Liners 101 Advanced Perl One-Liners Summary Examples

Hello, world Newlines Loops

One-Liners 101 Advanced Perl One-Liners Summary Examples

Hello, world Newlines Loops

One-Liners 101 Advanced Perl One-Liners Summary Examples

Hello, world Newlines Loops

One-Liners 101 Advanced Perl One-Liners Summary Examples

Hello, world Newlines Loops

One-Liners 101 Advanced Perl One-Liners Summary Examples

Hello, world Newlines Loops

One-Liners 101 Advanced Perl One-Liners Summary Examples

Hello, world Newlines Loops

One-Liners 101 Advanced Perl One-Liners Summary Examples

Hello, world Newlines Loops

Thats all you need to know.

One-Liners 101 Advanced Perl One-Liners Summary Examples

Hello, world Newlines Loops

One-Liners 101 Advanced Perl One-Liners Summary Examples

Hello, world Newlines Loops

Perl programmers love syntactic sugar.

One-Liners 101 Advanced Perl One-Liners Summary Examples

Hello, world Newlines Loops

Automatic newlines with -l

One-Liners 101 Advanced Perl One-Liners Summary Examples

Hello, world Newlines Loops

Automatic newlines with -l

One-Liners 101 Advanced Perl One-Liners Summary Examples

Hello, world Newlines Loops

One-Liners 101 Advanced Perl One-Liners Summary Examples

Hello, world Newlines Loops

One-Liners 101 Advanced Perl One-Liners Summary Examples

Hello, world Newlines Loops

say what? (continued)

To avoid breaking backward compatibility, say is turned o by default in 5.10.

One-Liners 101 Advanced Perl One-Liners Summary Examples