Finally, regular expressions can be used to split a string
into separate fields. To do so, we use the "split" function
with the format:
@split_array = split
(/[pattern_to_split_on]/, [string_to_split]);
For example, CGI applications often use the
split function to read the fields of database rows.
Consider the following code snippet:
$database_row = "Selena Sol|213-456-7890|27";
@database_fields = split (/|/, $database_row);
Now @database_fields will include the elements "Selena
Sol", "213-456-7890" and "27". Each of these fields can
then be processed separately if need be.
The reverse operation is performed with the "join"
function that uses the following format:
$joined_string = join
("[pattern_to_join_on]", [list_to_join]);
Thus, we might recreate the original
database row using
$new_database_row = join ("\|", @database_fields);
