Using Splice() to Add and Replace - Perl

We left off covering the splice() function, which can be used for adding and removing elements from a list. We also spoke about four other functions: pop(), push(), shift(), and unshift(), which are all similar to the splice() function, just not as flexible. In this article, we'll start out by discussing the splice() function in more detail, and learning how to remove more than one element in a list.

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By: James Payne

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March 31, 2008

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We can also use splice() to add and replace elements in an array. Let's say we want to get rid of two flavors from our list, and replace them with two others:

#!/usr/bin/perl

@KoolAidFlavors = (@KoolAidFlavors, 'Grape ','Cherry ','Watermelon

','Fruit-Punch ','Orange ');

@rem = ('Pomegranate ', 'Blueberry ');

print @KoolAidFlavors;

print "\n\n";

splice(@KoolAidFlavors, 1,2,(@rem));

print @KoolAidFlavors;

print "\n\n";

This code creates the @KoolAidFlavors list, adds a value to it, and then creates the @rem list, adds values to it, and prints out the value of KoolAidFlavors. Next we use splice() to replace the two elements following the first element with the values in the @rem list. When we run this program, we get the following print-out:

Grape Cherry Watermelon Fruit-Punch Orange

Grape Pomegranate Blueberry Fruit-Punch Orange

Note that we don't need to use a list to add and replace values in our @KoolAidFlavors list:

#!/usr/bin/perl

@KoolAidFlavors = (@KoolAidFlavors, 'Grape ','Cherry ','Watermelon

','Fruit-Punch ','Orange ');

print @KoolAidFlavors;

print "\n\n";

splice(@KoolAidFlavors, 1,2,('Pomegranate ','Blueberry '));

print @KoolAidFlavors;

print "\n\n";

This gives us the same result as above: