NAME

pl - Perl One-Liner Examples

EXAMPLES

To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research. ;-)

Here's a wide variety of examples, many solving real-life problems. Often you can copy & paste them as-is. Or you need to make minor changes, e.g. to adapt them to your search expression. Many of these examples started out quite small, illustrating the power of pl. But in order to be generally useful, they have been extended to cope with border cases.

Only some of these are original. Many have been adapted from the various Perl one-liner webpages (Tom Christiansen, Peteris Krumins, CatOnMat, joyrexus, Richard Socher, eduonix, IBM 101, IBM 102, Oracle, PerlMonks, perloneliner) or videos (Walt Mankowski, Techalicious, David Oswald). This is no attempt to appropriate ownership, just to show how things are even easier and more concise with pl.

All examples, if applicable, use the long names and are repeated for short names. Many examples are followed by their output, indented with >.

Dealing with Files

Heads ...

People say the back of my head looks really nice -- but I don't see it. :-)

If you want just n, e.g. 10, lines from the head of each file, use the optional number argument to -p, along with -r to reset the count. The program can be empty, but must be present, unless you're reading from stdin:

pl -rp10 '' file*

If you want the head up to a regexp, use the flip-flop operator, starting with line number 1. Use the print-if-true -P loop option, again with -r to reset the count:

pl -rP '1../last/' file*

You can combine the two, if you want at most n lines, e.g. 10:

pl -rP10 '1../last/' file*

... or Tails?

What has a head, a tail, but no legs? A penny. :-)

If you want a bigger number of last lines, you need to stuff them in a list; not really worth it. But if you want just 1 last line from each file, the end-of-file -e code (no need to quote, as it has no special characters) can E(cho) it for you, capitalized so as to not add another newline (yes, Perl is case sensitive):

pl -e Echo '' file*
pl -e E '' file*

If you want the tail from a line-number (e.g. 99) or a regexp, use the flip-flop operator, starting with your regexp and going till each end-of-file:

pl -P '99..eof' file*
pl -P '/first/..eof' file*

You can even get head and tail (which in programming logic translates to print if in 1st or 2nd range), if last line of head comes before 1st line of tail (or actually any number of such disjoint ranges):

pl -rP '1../last/ or /first/..eof' file*

Remove trailing whitespace in each file

This print-loops (-p) over each file, replacing it (-i) with the modified output. Line ends are stripped on reading and added on printing (-l), because they are also whitespace (\s). At each end of line, substitute one or more spaces of any kind (incl. DOS newlines) with nothing:

pl -pli 's/\s+$//' file*

Tabify/Untabify each file

This print-loops (-p) over each file, replacing it (-i) with the modified output. At beginning of line and after each tab, 8 spaces or less than 8 followed by a tab are converted to a tab:

pl -pi '1 while s/(?:^|\t)\K(?: {1,7}\t| {8})/\t/' file*

To go the other way, subtract the tab-preceding length modulo 8, to get the number of spaces to replace with:

pl -pi '1 while s/^([^\t\n]*)\K\t/" " x (8 - length($1) % 8)/e' file*

Fans of half-width tabs make that:

pl -pi '1 while s/(?:^|\t)\K(?: {1,3}\t| {4})/\t/' file*

pl -pi '1 while s/^([^\t\n]*)\K\t/" " x (4 - length($1) % 4)/e' file*

Print only 1st occurrence of each line

Poets create worlds through a minimal of words. -- Kim Hilliker |/|

This counts repetitions of lines in a hash. Print only when the expression is true (-P), i.e. the count was 0:

pl -P '!$a{$_}++' file*

If you want this per file, you must empty the hash in the end-of-file -e code:

pl -Pe '%a = ()' '!$a{$_}++' file*

Remove Empty Lines

Or, actually the opposite, printing back to the same files (-Pi) all lines containing non-whitespace \S:

pl -Pi '/\S/' file*

Move a line further down in each file

Assume we have lines matching "from" followed by lines matching "to". The former shall move after the latter. This loops over each file, replacing it with the modified output. The flip-flop operator becomes true when matching the 1st regexp. Capture something in there to easily recognize it's the first, keep the line in a variable and empty $_. When $1 is again true, it must be the last matching line. Append the keep variable to it.

pl -pi 'if( /(f)rom/.../(t)o/ ) { if( $1 eq "f" ) { $k = $_; $_ = "" } elsif( $1 ) { $_ .= $k }}' file*

Rename a file depending on contents

This reads each file without newlines in a -ln loop. When it finds the package declaration, which gives the logical name of this file, it replaces double-colons with slashes. It renames the file to the result. The last statement then makes this the last line read of the current file, continuing with the next file:

pl -ln 'if( s/^\s*package\s+([^\s;]+).*/$1/ ) { s!::!/!g; rename $ARGV, "$_.pm" or warn "$ARGV -> $_.pm: $!\n"; last }' *.pm
pl -ln 'if( s/^\s*package\s+([^\s;]+).*/$1/ ) { s!::!/!g; rename $A, "$_.pm" or warn "$A -> $_.pm: $!\n"; last }' *.pm

This assumes all files are at the root of the destination directories. If not you must add the common part of the target directories before $_.

On Windows this won't quite work, because that locks the file while reading. So there you must add close ARGV; (or close A;) before the rename.

For Java, it's a bit more complicated, because the full name is split into a package followed by a class or similar statement. Join them when we find the latter:

pl -n 'if( /^\s*package\s+([^\s;]+)/ ) { $d = $1 =~ tr+.+/+r } elsif( /^\s*(?:(?:public|private|protected|abstract|final)\s+)*(?:class|interface|enum|record)\s+([^\s;]+)/ ) { rename $ARGV, "$d/$1.java" or warn "$ARGV -> $d/$1.java: $!\n"; last }' *.java
pl -n 'if( /^\s*package\s+([^\s;]+)/ ) { $d = $1 =~ tr+.+/+r } elsif( /^\s*(?:(?:public|private|protected|abstract|final)\s+)*(?:class|interface|enum|record)\s+([^\s;]+)/ ) { rename $A, "$d/$1.java" or warn "$A -> $d/$1.java: $!\n"; last }' *.java

Delete matching files, except last one

If you have many files, which sort chronologically by name, and you want to keep only the last one, it can be quite painful to formulate Shell patterns. So check on each iteration of the -o loop, if the index $ARGIND (or $I) is less than the last, before unlinking (deleting). If you want to test it first, replace unlink with e(cho):

pl -o 'unlink if $ARGIND < $#ARGV' file*
pl -o 'unlink if $I < $#A' file*

If your resulting list is too long for the Shell, let Perl do it. Beware that the Shell has a clever ordering of files, while Perl does it purely lexically! In the -B BEGIN code the result is assigned to @A(RGV), as though it had come from the command line. This list is then popped (shortened), instead of checking each time. Since the program doesn't contain special characters, you don't even need to quote it:

pl -oB '@ARGV = <file*>; pop' unlink
pl -oB '@A = <file*>; pop' unlink

You can exclude files by any other criterion as well:

pl -oB '@ARGV = grep !/keep-me/, <file*>' unlink
pl -oB '@A = grep !/keep-me/, <file*>' unlink

File statistics

42% of statistics are made up! :-)

Count files per suffix

Find and pl both use the -0 option to allow funny filenames, including newlines. Sum up encountered suffixes in sort-numerically-at-end hash %N(UMBER):

find -type f -print0 |
    pl -0ln 'm@[^/.](\.[^/.]*)?$@; ++$NUMBER{$1 // "none"}'
find -type f -print0 |
    pl -0ln 'm@[^/.](\.[^/.]*)?$@; ++$N{$1 // "none"}'

>          4: .3
>          4: .SHs
>          4: .act
>         ...
>         88: .json
>        108: .tml
>        136: .xml
>        224: .yml
>        332: .xs
>        376: .sh
>        412: .ucm
>        444: .PL
>        512: .c
>        640: .h
>        696: .txt
>        950: .pod
>       1392: .pl
>       2988: none
>       3264: .pm
>      10846: .t

Count files per directory per suffix

There are three types of people: those who can count and those who can't. (-:

Match to first or last / and from last dot following something, i.e. not just a dot-file. Store sub-hashes in sort-by-key-and-stringify-at-end hash %R(ESULT). So count in a nested hash of directory & suffix:

find -type f -print0 |
    pl -0ln 'm@^(?:\./)?(.+?)/.*?[^/.](\.[^/.]*)?$@; ++$RESULT{$1}{$2 // "none"}'
find -type f -print0 |
    pl -0ln 'm@^(?:\./)?(.+?)/.*?[^/.](\.[^/.]*)?$@; ++$R{$1}{$2 // "none"}'

>   perl-5.30.0:  {
>     '.1' => 3,
>     '.3' => 1,
>     '.PL' => 111,
>     ...
>     '.yml' => 56,
>     none => 747
>   }
>   ...
>   perl-5.30.3:  {
>     '.1' => 3,
>     '.3' => 1,
>     '.PL' => 111,
>     '.SH' => 9,
>     ...'
>     '.perl' => 1,
>     '.perldb' => 2,
>     '.ph' => 1,
>     '.pht' => 1,
>     '.pkg' => 1,
>     '.pl' => 348,
>     '.yml' => 56,
>     none => 747
>   }

find -type f -print0 |
    pl -0ln 'm@^(?:\./)?(.+)/.*?[^/.](\.[^/.]*)?$@; ++$RESULT{$1}{$2 // "none"}'
find -type f -print0 |
    pl -0ln 'm@^(?:\./)?(.+)/.*?[^/.](\.[^/.]*)?$@; ++$R{$1}{$2 // "none"}'

>   perl-5.30.3:  {
>     '.SH' => 8,
>     '.act' => 1,
>     ...
>     '.yml' => 3,
>     none => 15
>   }
>   perl-5.30.3/Cross:  {
>     '.new' => 1,
>     '.patch' => 2,
>     '.sh-arm-linux' => 1,
>     '.sh-arm-linux-n770' => 1,
>     none => 9
>   }
>   ...
>   perl-5.30.3/lib:  {
>     '.pl' => 5,
>     '.pm' => 36,
>     '.pod' => 2,
>     '.t' => 41
>   }
>   perl-5.30.3/lib/B:  {
>     '.pm' => 2,
>     '.t' => 3
>   }
>   perl-5.30.3/lib/Class:  {
>     '.pm' => 1,
>     '.t' => 1
>   }
>   perl-5.30.3/lib/Config:  {
>     '.pm' => 1,
>     '.t' => 1
>   }
>   ...
>   perl-5.30.3/t:  {
>     '.pl' => 4,
>     '.supp' => 1,
>     none => 3
>   }
>   perl-5.30.3/t/base:  {
>     '.t' => 9
>   }
>   perl-5.30.3/t/benchmark:  {
>     '.t' => 1
>   }
>   ...

This is the same pivoted, grouping by suffix and counting per directory:

find -type f -print0 |
    pl -0ln 'm@^(?:\./)?(.+)/.*?[^/.](\.[^/.]*)?$@; ++$RESULT{$2 // "none"}{$1}'
find -type f -print0 |
    pl -0ln 'm@^(?:\./)?(.+)/.*?[^/.](\.[^/.]*)?$@; ++$R{$2 // "none"}{$1}'

>   ...
>   .pl:  {
>     'perl-5.30.3' => 8,
>     ...
>     'perl-5.30.3/dist/Attribute-Handlers/demo' => 11,
>     'perl-5.30.3/dist/Devel-PPPort/devel' => 3,
>     'perl-5.30.3/dist/Devel-PPPort/parts' => 2,
>     'perl-5.30.3/dist/Devel-PPPort/t' => 1,
>     'perl-5.30.3/dist/IO/hints' => 1,
>     'perl-5.30.3/dist/Storable/hints' => 4,
>     ...
>   }
>   ...
>   .pm:  {
>     'perl-5.30.3' => 1,
>     'perl-5.30.3/Porting' => 2,
>     ...
>     'perl-5.30.3/dist/Attribute-Handlers/lib/Attribute' => 1,
>     'perl-5.30.3/dist/Carp/lib' => 1,
>     'perl-5.30.3/dist/Carp/lib/Carp' => 1,
>     'perl-5.30.3/dist/Data-Dumper' => 1,
>     'perl-5.30.3/dist/Data-Dumper/t/lib' => 1,
>     ...
>   }
>   ...
>   .pod:  {
>     'perl-5.30.3/Porting' => 8,
>     'perl-5.30.3/cpan/CPAN-Meta/lib/CPAN/Meta/History' => 5,
>     'perl-5.30.3/cpan/CPAN/lib/CPAN/API' => 1,
>     ...
>     'perl-5.30.3/dist/ExtUtils-ParseXS/lib' => 3,
>     'perl-5.30.3/dist/ExtUtils-ParseXS/lib/ExtUtils' => 1,
>     'perl-5.30.3/dist/Locale-Maketext/lib/Locale' => 1,
>     'perl-5.30.3/dist/Locale-Maketext/lib/Locale/Maketext' => 2,
>     ...
>   }
>   ...

This is similar, but stores in sort-by-number-at-end %N(UMBER). Therefore it sorts by frequency, only secondarily by directory & suffix (pl sorts stably):

find -type f -print0 |
    pl -0ln 'm@^(?:\./)?(.+)/.*?[^/.](\.[^/.]*)?$@; ++$NUMBER{"$1 " . ($2 // "none")}'
find -type f -print0 |
    pl -0ln 'm@^(?:\./)?(.+)/.*?[^/.](\.[^/.]*)?$@; ++$N{"$1 " . ($2 // "none")}'

>          1: perl-5.30.3 .act
>          1: perl-5.30.3 .aix
>          1: perl-5.30.3 .amiga
>          1: perl-5.30.3 .android
>          1: perl-5.30.3 .bs2000
>          ...
>          2: perl-5.30.3/Porting .c
>          2: perl-5.30.3/Porting .pm
>          ...
>        138: perl-5.30.3/cpan/Unicode-Collate/t .t
>        149: perl-5.30.3/pod .pod
>        206: perl-5.30.3/t/op .t

The function N(umber) can trim %N(UMBER), to those entries at least the argument (default 2):

find -type f -print0 |
    pl -0lnE Number 'm@^(?:\./)?(.+)/.*?[^/.](\.[^/.]*)?$@; ++$NUMBER{"$1 " . ($2 // "none")}'
find -type f -print0 |
    pl -0lnE N 'm@^(?:\./)?(.+)/.*?[^/.](\.[^/.]*)?$@; ++$N{"$1 " . ($2 // "none")}'

find -type f -print0 |
    pl -0lnE 'Number 80' 'm@^(?:\./)?(.+)/.*?[^/.](\.[^/.]*)?$@; ++$NUMBER{"$1 " . ($2 // "none")}'
find -type f -print0 |
    pl -0lnE 'N 80' 'm@^(?:\./)?(.+)/.*?[^/.](\.[^/.]*)?$@; ++$N{"$1 " . ($2 // "none")}'

>         82: perl-5.30.3/cpan/Math-BigInt/t .t
>         82: perl-5.30.3/hints .sh
>         84: perl-5.30.3/cpan/IO-Compress/t .t
>         87: perl-5.30.3/cpan/Unicode-Collate/Collate/Locale .pl
>        103: perl-5.30.3/cpan/Encode/ucm .ucm
>        117: perl-5.30.3/ext/XS-APItest/t .t
>        137: perl-5.30.3/dist/Devel-PPPort/parts/base none
>        137: perl-5.30.3/dist/Devel-PPPort/parts/todo none
>        138: perl-5.30.3/cpan/Unicode-Collate/t .t
>        149: perl-5.30.3/pod .pod
>        206: perl-5.30.3/t/op .t

Sum up file-sizes per suffix

This illustrates a simpler approach: rather than the complicated regexps above, let Perl split each filename for us. Find separates output with a dot and -F splits on that. The \\ is to escape one backslash from the Shell. No matter how many dots the filename contains, 1st element is the size and last is the suffix. Sum it in %N(UMBER), which gets sorted numerically at the end:

find -type f -printf "%s.%f\0" |
    pl -0lF\\. '$NUMBER{@FIELD > 2 ? ".$FIELD[-1]" : "none"} += $FIELD[0]'
find -type f -printf "%s.%f\0" |
    pl -0lF\\. '$N{@F > 2 ? ".$F[-1]" : "none"} += $F[0]'

>          0: .configure
>         16: .perldb
>         85: .xsh
>         90: .inf
>        118: .pmc
>        138: .plugin
>   ...
>    7167163: .c
>    7638677: .pod
>    7794749: .h
>    9742749: .ucm
>   11124074: .t
>   11617824: .pm
>   12259742: .txt

Count files per date

Incredibly, find has no ready-made ISO date, so specify the 3 parts. If you don't want days, just leave out -%Td. Sum up encountered dates in sort-value-numerically-at-end hash %N(UMBER):

find -type f -printf "%TY-%Tm-%Td\n" |
    pl -ln '++$NUMBER{$_}'
find -type f -printf "%TY-%Tm-%Td\n" |
    pl -ln '++$N{$_}'

>          1: 2018-07-19
>          1: 2019-04-10
>          ...
>         34: 2020-02-11
>         93: 2020-02-29
>       2816: 2018-06-27
>       3307: 2019-05-11
>       6024: 2019-10-21
>      12159: 2019-10-24

Count files per date with rollup

Learn sign language! It's very handy. :-)

Rollup means, additionally to the previous case, sum up dates with the same prefix. The trick here is to count both for the actual year, month and day, as well as replacing once only the day, once also the month with "__", and once also the year with "____". This sorts after numbers and gives a sum for all with the same leading numbers. Use the sort-by-key-and-stringify-at-end hash %R(ESULT):

find -type f -printf "%TY-%Tm-%Td\n" |
    pl -ln 'do { ++$RESULT{$_} } while s/[0-9]+(?=[-_]*$)/"_" x length $&/e'
find -type f -printf "%TY-%Tm-%Td\n" |
    pl -ln 'do { ++$R{$_} } while s/[0-9]+(?=[-_]*$)/"_" x length $&/e'

>   2018-06-27:  2816
>   2018-06-__:  2816
>   2018-07-19:  1
>   2018-07-__:  1
>   2018-__-__:  2817
>   2019-04-10:  1
>   2019-04-__:  1
>   ...
>   2019-11-10:  11
>   2019-11-25:  6
>   2019-11-__:  17
>   2019-12-05:  4
>   2019-12-__:  4
>   2019-__-__:  21581
>   ...
>   2020-05-14:  33
>   2020-05-15:  1
>   2020-05-17:  5
>   2020-05-29:  4
>   2020-05-__:  43
>   2020-__-__:  206
>   ____-__-__:  24604

Diff several inputs by a unique key

Always remember you're unique, just like everyone else. :-)

The function k(eydiff) stores the 2nd arg or chomped $_ in %K(EYDIFF) keyed by 1st arg or $1 and the arg counter $ARGIND (or $I). Its sibling K(eydiff) does the same using 1st arg or 0 as an index into @F(IELD) for the 1st part of the key. At the end only the rows differing between files are shown. If you specify --color and have Algorithm::Diff the exact difference gets color-highlighted.

Diff several csv, tsv or passwd files by 1st field

This assumes comma-less key fields and no newline in any field. Else you need a csv-parser package. -F implies -a, which implies -n (even using older than Perl 5.20, which introduced this idea). -F, splits each line on commas, and K(eydiff) by default takes the 1st field as your unique key:

pl -F, Keydiff *.csv
pl -F, K *.csv

>   1
>   	1,H,Hydrogen,1:H & alkali metal,1.008
>   	n/a
>   	1,H,Hydrogen,1:alkali metal,1
>   4
>   	4,Be,Beryllium,2:alkaline earth metal,9.012
>   	4,Pl,Perlium,2:pl basis,5.32.0
>   	n/a
>   8
>   	8,O,Oxygen,16:O & chalcogen,15.999
>   	8,O,Oxygen,16:O & chalcogen,16
>   	8,O,Oxygen,16:O and chalcogen,16
>   41
>   	41,Nb,Niobium,5:no name,92.906
>   	n/a
>   	41,Nb,Columbium,5:no name,93
>   74
>   	74,W,Tungsten,6:transition metal,183.84
>   	74,W,Wolfram,6:transition metal,183.8
>   	n/a
>   80
>   	80,Hg,Mercury,12:no name,200.592
>   	80,Hg,Quicksilver,12:no name,200.6
>   	80,Hg,Hydrargyrum,12:no name,201
>   110
>   	n/a
>   	110,Ds,Darmstadtium,10:transition metal,[281]
>   	110,Ds,Darmstadtium,10:transition metal,281

This is similar, but removes the key from the stored value, so it doesn't get repeated for each file. Note how k(eydiff) by default uses $1 as a key for $_. Additionally, in a -B begin program, show the filenames one per line:

pl -nB 'echo for @ARGV' 'keydiff if s/(.+?),//' *.csv
pl -nB 'e for @A' 'k if s/(.+?),//' *.csv

>   atom-weight-1.csv
>   atom-weight-2.csv
>   atom-weight-3.csv
>   1
>   	H,Hydrogen,1:H & alkali metal,1.008
>   	n/a
>   	H,Hydrogen,1:alkali metal,1
>   4
>   	Be,Beryllium,2:alkaline earth metal,9.012
>   	Pl,Perlium,2:pl basis,5.32.0
>   	n/a
>   8
>   	O,Oxygen,16:O & chalcogen,15.999
>   	O,Oxygen,16:O & chalcogen,16
>   	O,Oxygen,16:O and chalcogen,16
>   41
>   	Nb,Niobium,5:no name,92.906
>   	n/a
>   	Nb,Columbium,5:no name,93
>   74
>   	W,Tungsten,6:transition metal,183.84
>   	W,Wolfram,6:transition metal,183.8
>   	n/a
>   80
>   	Hg,Mercury,12:no name,200.592
>   	Hg,Quicksilver,12:no name,200.6
>   	Hg,Hydrargyrum,12:no name,201
>   110
>   	n/a
>   	Ds,Darmstadtium,10:transition metal,[281]
>   	Ds,Darmstadtium,10:transition metal,281

A variant of csv is tsv, with tab as separator. Tab is \t, which must be escaped from the Shell as \\t:

pl -F\\t Keydiff *.tsv
pl -F\\t K *.tsv

>   1
>   	1	H	Hydrogen	1:H & alkali metal	1.008
>   	n/a
>   	1	H	Hydrogen	1:alkali metal	1
>   4
>   	4	Be	Beryllium	2:alkaline earth metal	9.012
>   	4	Pl	Perlium	2:pl basis	5.32.0
>   	n/a
>   8
>   	8	O	Oxygen	16:O & chalcogen	15.999
>   	8	O	Oxygen	16:O & chalcogen	16
>   	8	O	Oxygen	16:O and chalcogen	16
>   41
>   	41	Nb	Niobium	5:no name	92.906
>   	n/a
>   	41	Nb	Columbium	5:no name	93
>   74
>   	74	W	Tungsten	6:transition metal	183.84
>   	74	W	Wolfram	6:transition metal	183.8
>   	n/a
>   80
>   	80	Hg	Mercury	12:no name	200.592
>   	80	Hg	Quicksilver	12:no name	200.6
>   	80	Hg	Hydrargyrum	12:no name	201
>   110
>   	n/a
>   	110	Ds	Darmstadtium	10:transition metal	[281]
>   	110	Ds	Darmstadtium	10:transition metal	281

pl -n 'keydiff if s/(.+?)\t//' *.tsv
pl -n 'k if s/(.+?)\t//' *.tsv

>   1
>   	H	Hydrogen	1:H & alkali metal	1.008
>   	n/a
>   	H	Hydrogen	1:alkali metal	1
>   4
>   	Be	Beryllium	2:alkaline earth metal	9.012
>   	Pl	Perlium	2:pl basis	5.32.0
>   	n/a
>   8
>   	O	Oxygen	16:O & chalcogen	15.999
>   	O	Oxygen	16:O & chalcogen	16
>   	O	Oxygen	16:O and chalcogen	16
>   41
>   	Nb	Niobium	5:no name	92.906
>   	n/a
>   	Nb	Columbium	5:no name	93
>   74
>   	W	Tungsten	6:transition metal	183.84
>   	W	Wolfram	6:transition metal	183.8
>   	n/a
>   80
>   	Hg	Mercury	12:no name	200.592
>   	Hg	Quicksilver	12:no name	200.6
>   	Hg	Hydrargyrum	12:no name	201
>   110
>   	n/a
>   	Ds	Darmstadtium	10:transition metal	[281]
>   	Ds	Darmstadtium	10:transition metal	281

The same, with a colon as separator, if you want to compare passwd files from several hosts. Here we additionally need to ignore commented out lines:

pl -F: 'Keydiff unless /^#/' /etc/passwd passwd*
pl -F: 'K unless /^#/' /etc/passwd passwd*

pl -n 'keydiff if s/^([^#].*?)://' /etc/passwd passwd*
pl -n 'k if s/^([^#].*?)://' /etc/passwd passwd*

Diff several zip archives by member name

This uses the same mechanism as the csv example. Addidionally, through the p(iped) block, it reads the output of unzip -vql for each archive. That has an almost fixed format, except with extreme member sizes. The regexp picks up only those lines which refer to files:

pl -oB 'echo for @ARGV' 'piped { keydiff if s@.{29,}% .{16} [\da-f]{8}\K  (.*[^/])\n@@ } "unzip", "-vql", $_' *.zip
pl -oB 'e for @A' 'p { k if s@.{29,}% .{16} [\da-f]{8}\K  (.*[^/])\n@@ } "unzip", "-vql", $_' *.zip

>   perl-5.30.0.zip
>   perl-5.30.1.zip
>   perl-5.30.2.zip
>   perl-5.30.3.zip
>   AUTHORS
>   	   48831  Defl:N    22282  54% 2019-05-11 11:50 cc2a1286
>   	   48864  Defl:N    22297  54% 2019-10-24 23:27 b793bcc5
>   	   48927  Defl:N    22338  54% 2020-02-29 12:55 8cecd35e
>   	   48927  Defl:N    22338  54% 2020-02-11 14:31 8cecd35e
>   Artistic
>   	    6321  Defl:N     2400  62% 2019-05-11 11:50 fa53ec29
>   	    6321  Defl:N     2400  62% 2019-10-24 22:17 fa53ec29
>   	    6321  Defl:N     2400  62% 2019-10-24 22:17 fa53ec29
>   	    6321  Defl:N     2400  62% 2019-10-21 13:20 fa53ec29
>   Changes
>   	    3168  Defl:N     1273  60% 2018-06-27 13:17 66a9af3e
>   	    3111  Defl:N     1246  60% 2019-10-27 10:52 f826c349
>   	    3111  Defl:N     1246  60% 2019-10-27 10:52 f826c349
>   	    3111  Defl:N     1246  60% 2019-10-28 09:05 f826c349
>   ...

Java .jar, .ear & .war files (which are aliases for .zip), after a clean build have many class files with the identical crc, but a different date. This excludes the date:

pl -o 'piped { keydiff $2 if s@.{29,}% \K.{16} ([\da-f]{8})  (.*[^/])\n@$1@ } "unzip", "-vql", $_' *.zip
pl -o 'p { k $2 if s@.{29,}% \K.{16} ([\da-f]{8})  (.*[^/])\n@$1@ } "unzip", "-vql", $_' *.zip

>   AUTHORS
>   	   48831  Defl:N    22282  54% cc2a1286
>   	   48864  Defl:N    22297  54% b793bcc5
>   	   48927  Defl:N    22338  54% 8cecd35e
>   	   48927  Defl:N    22338  54% 8cecd35e
>   Changes
>   	    3168  Defl:N     1273  60% 66a9af3e
>   	    3111  Defl:N     1246  60% f826c349
>   	    3111  Defl:N     1246  60% f826c349
>   	    3111  Defl:N     1246  60% f826c349
>   Configure
>   	  587687  Defl:N   148890  75% 144c0f25
>   	  587687  Defl:N   148890  75% 144c0f25
>   	  587825  Defl:N   148954  75% 6761d877
>   	  587825  Defl:N   148954  75% 6761d877
>   INSTALL
>   	  108059  Defl:N    37351  65% 45af5545
>   	  108085  Defl:N    37371  65% e5f2f22b
>   	  107649  Defl:N    37211  65% 9db83c1e
>   	  107649  Defl:N    37211  65% 16726160
>   ...

Diff several tarballs by member name

This is like the zip example. Alas tar gives no checksums, so this is less reliable. Exclude directories, by taking only lines not starting with a d. Each time a wider owner/group or file size was seen, columns shift right. So reformat the columns, to not show this as a difference:

pl -oB 'echo for @ARGV' 'piped { keydiff $4 if s!^[^d]\S+ \K(.+?) +(\d+) (.{16}) (.+)!sprintf "%-20s %10d %s", $1, $2, $3!e } "tar", "-tvf", $_' *.tar *.tgz *.txz
pl -oB 'e for @A' 'p { k $4 if s!^[^d]\S+ \K(.+?) +(\d+) (.{16}) (.+)!sprintf "%-20s %10d %s", $1, $2, $3!e } "tar", "-tvf", $_' *.tar *.tgz *.txz

>   perl-5.30.0.txz
>   perl-5.30.1.txz
>   perl-5.30.2.txz
>   perl-5.30.3.txz
>   ...
>   cpan/Compress-Raw-Bzip2/bzip2-src/decompress.c
>   	-r--r--r-- pfeiffer/pfeiffer         20948 2018-06-27 13:17
>   	-r--r--r-- pfeiffer/pfeiffer         20948 2019-10-24 22:17
>   	-r--r--r-- pfeiffer/pfeiffer         21287 2020-02-29 12:55
>   	-r--r--r-- pfeiffer/pfeiffer         21287 2020-02-12 18:41
>   cpan/Compress-Raw-Bzip2/bzip2-src/huffman.c
>   	-r--r--r-- pfeiffer/pfeiffer          6991 2018-06-27 13:17
>   	-r--r--r-- pfeiffer/pfeiffer          6991 2019-10-24 22:17
>   	-r--r--r-- pfeiffer/pfeiffer          6986 2020-02-29 12:55
>   	-r--r--r-- pfeiffer/pfeiffer          6986 2020-02-12 18:41
>   cpan/Compress-Raw-Bzip2/bzip2-src/randtable.c
>   	-r--r--r-- pfeiffer/pfeiffer          3866 2018-06-27 13:17
>   	-r--r--r-- pfeiffer/pfeiffer          3866 2019-10-24 22:17
>   	-r--r--r-- pfeiffer/pfeiffer          3861 2020-02-29 12:55
>   	-r--r--r-- pfeiffer/pfeiffer          3861 2020-02-12 18:41
>   cpan/Compress-Raw-Bzip2/fallback/constants.h
>   	-r--r--r-- pfeiffer/pfeiffer          7238 2018-06-27 13:17
>   	-r--r--r-- pfeiffer/pfeiffer          7238 2019-10-24 22:17
>   	-r--r--r-- pfeiffer/pfeiffer          7238 2019-10-24 22:17
>   	-r--r--r-- pfeiffer/pfeiffer          7238 2019-10-21 13:20
>   ...

Same without the date:

pl -o 'piped { keydiff $3 if s!^[^d]\S+ \K(.+?) +(\d+) .{16} (.+)!sprintf "%-20s %10d", $1, $2!e; } "tar", "-tvf", $_' *.tar *.tgz *.txz
pl -o 'p { k $3 if s!^[^d]\S+ \K(.+?) +(\d+) .{16} (.+)!sprintf "%-20s %10d", $1, $2!e; } "tar", "-tvf", $_' *.tar *.tgz *.txz

>   ...
>   cpan/Compress-Raw-Bzip2/bzip2-src/decompress.c
>   	-r--r--r-- pfeiffer/pfeiffer         20948
>   	-r--r--r-- pfeiffer/pfeiffer         20948
>   	-r--r--r-- pfeiffer/pfeiffer         21287
>   	-r--r--r-- pfeiffer/pfeiffer         21287
>   cpan/Compress-Raw-Bzip2/bzip2-src/huffman.c
>   	-r--r--r-- pfeiffer/pfeiffer          6991
>   	-r--r--r-- pfeiffer/pfeiffer          6991
>   	-r--r--r-- pfeiffer/pfeiffer          6986
>   	-r--r--r-- pfeiffer/pfeiffer          6986
>   cpan/Compress-Raw-Bzip2/bzip2-src/randtable.c
>   	-r--r--r-- pfeiffer/pfeiffer          3866
>   	-r--r--r-- pfeiffer/pfeiffer          3866
>   	-r--r--r-- pfeiffer/pfeiffer          3861
>   	-r--r--r-- pfeiffer/pfeiffer          3861
>   cpan/Compress-Raw-Bzip2/lib/Compress/Raw/Bzip2.pm
>   	-r--r--r-- pfeiffer/pfeiffer         10783
>   	-r--r--r-- pfeiffer/pfeiffer         10783
>   	-r--r--r-- pfeiffer/pfeiffer         11009
>   	-r--r--r-- pfeiffer/pfeiffer         11009
>   ...

Tarballs from the internet have a top directory of name-version/, which across versions would make every member have a different key. So exclude the 1st path element from the key by matching [^/]+/ before the last paren group:

pl -o 'piped { keydiff $4 if s!^[^d]\S+ \K(.+?) +(\d+) (.{16}) [^/]+/(.+)!Form "%-20s %10d %s", $1, $2, $3!e } "tar", "-tvf", $_' *.tar *.tgz *.txz
pl -o 'p { k $4 if s!^[^d]\S+ \K(.+?) +(\d+) (.{16}) [^/]+/(.+)!F "%-20s %10d %s", $1, $2, $3!e } "tar", "-tvf", $_' *.tar *.tgz *.txz

>   .dir-locals.el
>   	-r--r--r-- sawyer/sawyer               208 2018-06-27 13:17
>   	-r--r--r-- Steve/None                  208 2019-10-24 22:17
>   	-r--r--r-- Steve/None                  208 2019-10-24 22:17
>   	-r--r--r-- Steve/None                  208 2019-10-21 13:20
>   .lgtm.yml
>   	-r--r--r-- sawyer/sawyer               347 2019-05-11 11:50
>   	-r--r--r-- Steve/None                  347 2019-10-24 22:17
>   	-r--r--r-- Steve/None                  347 2019-10-24 22:17
>   	-r--r--r-- Steve/None                  347 2019-10-21 13:20
>   .metaconf-exclusions.txt
>   	-r--r--r-- sawyer/sawyer              1317 2019-05-11 11:50
>   	-r--r--r-- Steve/None                 1317 2019-10-24 22:17
>   	-r--r--r-- Steve/None                 1317 2019-10-24 22:17
>   	-r--r--r-- Steve/None                 1317 2019-10-21 13:20
>   .travis.yml
>   	-r--r--r-- sawyer/sawyer              2203 2019-05-11 11:50
>   	-r--r--r-- Steve/None                 2203 2019-10-24 23:27
>   	-r--r--r-- Steve/None                 2203 2019-10-24 23:27
>   	-r--r--r-- Steve/None                 2203 2019-10-21 13:20
>   AUTHORS
>   	-r--r--r-- sawyer/sawyer             48831 2019-05-11 11:50
>   	-r--r--r-- Steve/None                48864 2019-10-24 23:27
>   	-r--r--r-- Steve/None                48927 2020-02-29 12:55
>   	-r--r--r-- Steve/None                48927 2020-02-11 14:31
>   Artistic
>   	-r--r--r-- sawyer/sawyer              6321 2019-05-11 11:50
>   	-r--r--r-- Steve/None                 6321 2019-10-24 22:17
>   	-r--r--r-- Steve/None                 6321 2019-10-24 22:17
>   	-r--r--r-- Steve/None                 6321 2019-10-21 13:20
>   Changes
>   	-r--r--r-- sawyer/sawyer              3168 2018-06-27 13:17
>   	-r--r--r-- Steve/None                 3111 2019-10-27 10:52
>   	-r--r--r-- Steve/None                 3111 2019-10-27 10:52
>   	-r--r--r-- Steve/None                 3111 2019-10-28 09:05
>   ...

Again without the date and owner/group, which can also vary:

pl -o 'piped { keydiff $2 if s!^[^d]\S+ \K.+? +(\d+) .{16} [^/]+/(.+)!Form "%10d", $1!e; } "tar", "-tvf", $_' *.tar *.tgz *.txz
pl -o 'p { k $2 if s!^[^d]\S+ \K.+? +(\d+) .{16} [^/]+/(.+)!F "%10d", $1!e; } "tar", "-tvf", $_' *.tar *.tgz *.txz

>   AUTHORS
>   	-r--r--r--      48831
>   	-r--r--r--      48864
>   	-r--r--r--      48927
>   	-r--r--r--      48927
>   Changes
>   	-r--r--r--       3168
>   	-r--r--r--       3111
>   	-r--r--r--       3111
>   	-r--r--r--       3111
>   Configure
>   	-r-xr-xr-x     587687
>   	-r-xr-xr-x     587687
>   	-r-xr-xr-x     587825
>   	-r-xr-xr-x     587825
>   ...

Diff ELF executables by loaded dependencies

You get the idea: you can do this for any command that outputs records with a unique key. This one looks at the required libraries and which file they came from. For a change, loop with -O and $A(RGV) to avoid the previous examples' confusion between outer $_ which are the cli args, and the inner one, which are the read lines:

pl -O 'piped { keydiff if s/^\t(.+\.so.*) => (.*) \(\w+\)/$2/ } ldd => $ARGV' exe1 exe2 lib*.so
pl -O 'p { k if s/^\t(.+\.so.*) => (.*) \(\w+\)/$2/ } ldd => $A' exe1 exe2 lib*.so

It's even more useful if you use just the basename as a key, because version numbers may change:

pl -O 'piped { keydiff $2 if s/^\t((.+)\.so.* => .*) \(\w+\)/$1/ } ldd => $ARGV' exe1 exe2 lib*.so
pl -O 'p { k $2 if s/^\t((.+)\.so.* => .*) \(\w+\)/$1/ } ldd => $A' exe1 exe2 lib*.so

Looking at Perl

A pig looking at an electric socket: "Oh no, who put you into that wall?" :)

VERSION of a File

Print the first line (-P1) where the substitution was successful. To avoid the hassle of protecting them from (sometimes multiple levels of) Shell quoting, there are variables for single $q(uote) & double $Q(uote):

pl -P1 's/.+\bVERSION\s*=\s*[v$Quote$quote]([0-9.]+).+/$1/' pl
pl -P1 's/.+\bVERSION\s*=\s*[v$Q$q]([0-9.]+).+/$1/' pl

>   0.59.0

For multple files, add the filename, and reset (-r) the -P count for each file:

pl -rP1 's/.+\bVERSION\s*=\s*[v$Quote$quote]([0-9.]+).+/$ARGV: $1/' *.pm
pl -rP1 's/.+\bVERSION\s*=\s*[v$Q$q]([0-9.]+).+/$A: $1/' *.pm

Only POD or non-POD

You can extract either parts of a Perl file, with these commands. Note that they don't take the empty line before into account. If you want that, and you're sure the files adheres strictly to this convention, use the option -00P instead (not exactly as desired, the empty line comes after things, but still, before next thing). If you want only the 1st POD (e.g. NAME & SYNOPSIS) use the option -P1 or -00P1:

pl -P '/^=\w/../^=cut/' file*

pl -P 'not /^=\w/../^=cut/' file*

Count Perl Code

This makes __DATA__ or __END__ the last inspected line of (unlike in perl -n!) each file. It strips any comment (not quite reliably, also inside a string). Then it strips leading whitespace and adds the remaining length to print-at-end $R(ESULT):

pl -ln 'last if /^__(?:DATA|END)__/; s/(?:^|\s+)#.*//s; s/^\s+//; $result += length' *.pm

If you want the count per file, instead of $R(ESULT) use either sort-lexically $RESULT{$ARGV} (or $R{$A}) or sort-numerically $NUMBER{$ARGV} (or $N{$A}).

Content of a Package

Pl's e(cho) can print any item. Packages are funny hashes, with two colons at the end. Backslashing the variable passes it as a unit to Data::Dumper, which gets loaded on demand in this case. Otherwise all elements would come out just separated by spaces:

pl 'echo \%List::Util::'
pl 'e \%List::Util::'

>   {
>     BEGIN => *List::Util::BEGIN,
>     EXPORT => *List::Util::EXPORT,
>     EXPORT_OK => *List::Util::EXPORT_OK,
>     ISA => *List::Util::ISA,
>     REAL_MULTICALL => *List::Util::List::Util,
>     VERSION => *List::Util::VERSION,
>     XS_VERSION => *List::Util::XS_VERSION,
>     '_Pair::' => *{'List::Util::_Pair::'},
>     all => *List::Util::all,
>     any => *List::Util::any,
>     bootstrap => *List::Util::bootstrap,
>     first => *List::Util::first,
>     head => *List::Util::head,
>     import => *List::Util::import,
>     max => *List::Util::max,
>     maxstr => *List::Util::maxstr,
>     min => *List::Util::min,
>     minstr => *List::Util::minstr,
>     none => *List::Util::none,
>     notall => *List::Util::notall,
>     pairfirst => *List::Util::pairfirst,
>     pairgrep => *List::Util::pairgrep,
>     pairkeys => *List::Util::pairkeys,
>     pairmap => *List::Util::pairmap,
>     pairs => *List::Util::pairs,
>     pairvalues => *List::Util::pairvalues,
>     product => *List::Util::product,
>     reduce => *List::Util::reduce,
>     shuffle => *List::Util::shuffle,
>     sum => *List::Util::sum,
>     sum0 => *List::Util::sum0,
>     tail => *List::Util::tail,
>     uniq => *List::Util::uniq,
>     uniqnum => *List::Util::uniqnum,
>     uniqstr => *List::Util::uniqstr,
>     unpairs => *List::Util::unpairs
>   }

Library Loading

Where does perl load from, and what exactly has it loaded?

pl 'echo \@INC, \%INC'
pl 'e \@INC, \%INC'

>   [
>     '/etc/perl',
>     '/usr/local/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl/5.30.3',
>     '/usr/local/share/perl/5.30.3',
>     '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl5/5.30',
>     '/usr/share/perl5',
>     '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl-base',
>     '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl/5.30',
>     '/usr/share/perl/5.30',
>     '/usr/local/lib/site_perl'
>   ] {
>     'Carp.pm' => '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl-base/Carp.pm',
>     'Data/Dumper.pm' => '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl/5.30/Data/Dumper.pm',
>     'Exporter.pm' => '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl-base/Exporter.pm',
>     'List/Util.pm' => '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl-base/List/Util.pm',
>     'XSLoader.pm' => '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl-base/XSLoader.pm',
>     'bytes.pm' => '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl-base/bytes.pm',
>     'constant.pm' => '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl-base/constant.pm',
>     'feature.pm' => '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl-base/feature.pm',
>     'overloading.pm' => '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl-base/overloading.pm',
>     'sort.pm' => '/usr/share/perl/5.30/sort.pm',
>     'strict.pm' => '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl-base/strict.pm',
>     'warnings.pm' => '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl-base/warnings.pm',
>     'warnings/register.pm' => '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl-base/warnings/register.pm'
>   }

Same, for a different Perl version, e.g. if you have perl5.28.1 in your path:

pl -V5.28.1 'echo \@INC, \%INC'
pl -V5.28.1 'e \@INC, \%INC'

>   [
>     '/etc/perl',
>     '/usr/local/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl/5.28.1',
>     '/usr/local/share/perl/5.28.1',
>     '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl5/5.28',
>     '/usr/share/perl5',
>     '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl/5.28',
>     '/usr/share/perl/5.28',
>     '/usr/local/lib/site_perl',
>     '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl-base'
>   ] {
>     'Carp.pm' => '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl/5.28/Carp.pm',
>     'Data/Dumper.pm' => '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl/5.28/Data/Dumper.pm',
>     'Exporter.pm' => '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl/5.28/Exporter.pm',
>     'List/Util.pm' => '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl/5.28/List/Util.pm',
>     'XSLoader.pm' => '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl/5.28/XSLoader.pm',
>     'bytes.pm' => '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl/5.28/bytes.pm',
>     'constant.pm' => '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl/5.28/constant.pm',
>     'feature.pm' => '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl/5.28/feature.pm',
>     'overloading.pm' => '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl/5.28/overloading.pm',
>     'sort.pm' => '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl/5.28/sort.pm',
>     'strict.pm' => '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl/5.28/strict.pm',
>     'warnings.pm' => '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl/5.28/warnings.pm',
>     'warnings/register.pm' => '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl/5.28/warnings/register.pm'
>   }

Configuration

You get %Config::Config loaded on demand and returned by C(onfig):

pl 'echo Config'
pl 'e C'

>   {
>     Author => '',
>     CONFIG => 'true',
>     Date => '',
>     Header => '',
>     Id => '',
>     Locker => '',
>     Log => '',
>     PATCHLEVEL => '30',
>     PERL_API_REVISION => '5',
>     PERL_API_SUBVERSION => '0',
>     PERL_API_VERSION => '30',
>     ...
>   }

It returns a hash reference, from which you can lookup an entry:

pl 'echo Config->{sitelib}'
pl 'e C->{sitelib}'

>   /usr/local/share/perl/5.30.3

You can also return a sub-hash, of only the keys matching any regexps you pass:

pl 'echo Config "random", qr/stream/'
pl 'e C "random", qr/stream/'

>   {
>     d_random_r => 'define',
>     d_srandom_r => 'define',
>     d_stdio_stream_array => undef,
>     random_r_proto => 'REENTRANT_PROTO_I_St',
>     srandom_r_proto => 'REENTRANT_PROTO_I_TS',
>     stdio_stream_array => ''
>   }

Tables

ISO paper sizes

ISO replaced 8 standards by one. Now we have 9 standards. :-(

Uses Perl's lovely list assignment to swap and alternately halve the numbers. Because halving happens before echoing, start with double size. Can't put the A into the format string, because 10 is too wide:

pl '($w, $h) = (1189, 1682); form "%3s  %4dmm x %4dmm", "A$_", ($w, $h) = ($h / 2, $w) for 0..10'
pl '($w, $h) = (1189, 1682); f "%3s  %4dmm x %4dmm", "A$_", ($w, $h) = ($h / 2, $w) for 0..10'

>    A0   841mm x 1189mm
>    A1   594mm x  841mm
>    A2   420mm x  594mm
>    A3   297mm x  420mm
>    A4   210mm x  297mm
>    A5   148mm x  210mm
>    A6   105mm x  148mm
>    A7    74mm x  105mm
>    A8    52mm x   74mm
>    A9    37mm x   52mm
>   A10    26mm x   37mm

The table could easily be widened to cover B- & C-formats, by extending each list of 2, to a corresponding list of 6, e.g. ($Aw, $Ah, $Bw, ...). But a more algorithmic approach seems better. This fills @A(RGV) in -B, as though it had been given on the command line and prepares a nested list of the 3 initials specs. The format is tripled (with cheat spaces at the beginning). The main program loops over @A(RGV), thanks to -O, doing the same as above, but on anonymous elements of @d:

pl -OB '@ARGV = 0..10; @d = (["A", 1189, 1682], ["B", 1414, 2000], ["C", 1297, 1834])' \
    'form "  %3s  %4dmm x %4dmm"x3, map +("$$_[0]$ARGV", ($$_[1], $$_[2]) = ($$_[2] / 2, $$_[1])), @d'
pl -OB '@A = 0..10; @d = (["A", 1189, 1682], ["B", 1414, 2000], ["C", 1297, 1834])' \
    'f "  %3s  %4dmm x %4dmm"x3, map +("$$_[0]$A", ($$_[1], $$_[2]) = ($$_[2] / 2, $$_[1])), @d'

>      A0   841mm x 1189mm   B0  1000mm x 1414mm   C0   917mm x 1297mm
>      A1   594mm x  841mm   B1   707mm x 1000mm   C1   648mm x  917mm
>      A2   420mm x  594mm   B2   500mm x  707mm   C2   458mm x  648mm
>      A3   297mm x  420mm   B3   353mm x  500mm   C3   324mm x  458mm
>      A4   210mm x  297mm   B4   250mm x  353mm   C4   229mm x  324mm
>      A5   148mm x  210mm   B5   176mm x  250mm   C5   162mm x  229mm
>      A6   105mm x  148mm   B6   125mm x  176mm   C6   114mm x  162mm
>      A7    74mm x  105mm   B7    88mm x  125mm   C7    81mm x  114mm
>      A8    52mm x   74mm   B8    62mm x   88mm   C8    57mm x   81mm
>      A9    37mm x   52mm   B9    44mm x   62mm   C9    40mm x   57mm
>     A10    26mm x   37mm  B10    31mm x   44mm  C10    28mm x   40mm

ANSI foreground;background color table

If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried! ;-)

What a table, hardly a one-liner... You get numbers to fill into "\e[FGm", "\e[BGm" or "\e[FG;BGm" to get a color and close it with "\e[m". There are twice twice 8 different colors for dim & bright and for foreground & background. Hence the multiplication of escape codes and of values to fill them.

This fills @A(RGV) in -B, as though it had been given on the command line. It maps it to the 16fold number format to print the header. Then the main program loops over it with $A(RGV), thanks to -O, to print the body. All numbers are duplicated with (N)x2, once to go into the escape sequence, once to be displayed:

pl -OB '@ARGV = map +($_, $_+8), 1..8; form "co:  fg;bg"."%5d"x16, @ARGV' \
    'form "%2d:  \e[%dm%d;   ".("\e[%dm%4d "x16)."\e[m", $ARGV, ($ARGV + ($ARGV > 8 ? 81 : 29))x2, map +(($_)x2, ($_+60)x2), 40..47'
pl -OB '@A = map +($_, $_+8), 1..8; f "co:  fg;bg"."%5d"x16, @A' \
    'f "%2d:  \e[%dm%d;   ".("\e[%dm%4d "x16)."\e[m", $A, ($A + ($A > 8 ? 81 : 29))x2, map +(($_)x2, ($_+60)x2), 40..47'

This does exactly the same, but explicitly loops over lists @co & @bg:

pl '@co = map +($_, $_+8), 1..8; @bg = map +(($_)x2, ($_+60)x2), 40..47;
    form "co:  fg;bg"."%5d"x16, @co;
    form "%2d:  \e[%dm%d;   ".("\e[%dm%4d "x16)."\e[m", $_, ($_ + ($_ > 8 ? 81 : 29))x2, @bg for @co'
pl '@co = map +($_, $_+8), 1..8; @bg = map +(($_)x2, ($_+60)x2), 40..47;
    f "co:  fg;bg"."%5d"x16, @co;
    f "%2d:  \e[%dm%d;   ".("\e[%dm%4d "x16)."\e[m", $_, ($_ + ($_ > 8 ? 81 : 29))x2, @bg for @co'

Math

Minimum and Maximum

The List::Util functions min and max are imported for you:

pl 'echo max 1..5'
pl 'e max 1..5'

>   5

If you have just several numbers on each line and want their minimums, you can autosplit (-a) to @F(IELD):

pl -a 'echo min @FIELD' file*
pl -a 'e min @F' file*

If on the same you just want the overall minimum, you can use the print-at-end variable $R(ESULT), which you initialise to infinity in a -B BEGIN program:

pl -aB '$RESULT = "inf"' '$RESULT = min $RESULT, @FIELD' file*
pl -aB '$R = "inf"' '$R = min $R, @F' file*

Likewise for overall maximum, you start with negative infinity:

pl -aB '$RESULT = "-inf"' '$RESULT = max $RESULT, @FIELD' file*
pl -aB '$R = "-inf"' '$R = max $R, @F' file*

Median, Quartiles, Percentiles

The median is the number where half the list is less and half is greater. Similarly the 1st quartile is where 25% are less and the 3rd where 25% are greater. Use a list slice to extract these 3 and a 97th percentile, by multiplying the fractional percentage with the list length:

pl '@list = 0..200; echo @list[map $_*@list, .25, .5, .75, .97]'
pl '@list = 0..200; e @list[map $_*@list, .25, .5, .75, .97]'

>   50 100 150 194

If you'd rather have names associated, assign them to hash slice in sort-numerically-at-end %N(UMBER), whose key order must match the percentages:

pl '@list = 0..200; @NUMBER{qw(lower median upper 97.)} = @list[map $_*@list, .25, .5, .75, .97]'
pl '@list = 0..200; @N{qw(lower median upper 97.)} = @list[map $_*@list, .25, .5, .75, .97]'

>         50: lower
>        100: median
>        150: upper
>        194: 97.

Triangular Number, Factorial and Average

The triangular number is defined as the sum of all numbers from 1 to n, e.g. 1 to 5:

pl 'echo sum 1..5'
pl 'e sum 1..5'

>   15

Factorial is the equivalent for products. This requires List::Util as of Perl 5.20 or newer:

pl 'echo product 1..5'
pl 'e product 1..5'

>   120

The sum of all list elements divided by the length of the list gives the average:

pl '@list = 11..200; echo sum( @list ) / @list'
pl '@list = 11..200; e sum( @list ) / @list'

>   105.5

Add Pairs or Tuples of Numbers

If you have a list of number pairs and want to add each 1st and each 2nd number, reduce is your friend. Inside it map over the pair elements 0..1:

pl 'echo reduce { [map $a->[$_] + $b->[$_], 0..1] } [1, 11], [2, 12], [3, 13]'
pl 'e reduce { [map $a->[$_] + $b->[$_], 0..1] } [1, 11], [2, 12], [3, 13]'

>   [
>     6,
>     36
>   ]

If your list is a variable and is empty the result is undef. You can insert a fallback zero element if you'd rather receive that for an empty list:

pl 'echo reduce { [map $a->[$_] + $b->[$_], 0..1] } [0, 0], @list'
pl 'e reduce { [map $a->[$_] + $b->[$_], 0..1] } [0, 0], @list'

>   [
>     0,
>     0
>   ]

The above adds pairs, because we iterate 0..1. This can be generalized to tuples by iterating to the length of the 1st array:

pl 'echo reduce { [map $a->[$_] + $b->[$_], 0..$#$a] } [1, 11, 21], [2, 12, 22], [3, 13, 23]'
pl 'e reduce { [map $a->[$_] + $b->[$_], 0..$#$a] } [1, 11, 21], [2, 12, 22], [3, 13, 23]'

>   [
>     6,
>     36,
>     66
>   ]

Big Math

2 + 2 = 5 for extremely large values of 2. :-)

With the bignum and bigrat modules you can do arbitrary precision and semi-symbolic fractional math:

pl -Mbignum 'echo 123456789012345678901234567890 * 123456789012345678901234567890'
pl -Mbignum 'e 123456789012345678901234567890 * 123456789012345678901234567890'

>   15241578753238836750495351562536198787501905199875019052100

pl -Mbignum 'echo 1.23456789012345678901234567890 * 1.23456789012345678901234567890'
pl -Mbignum 'e 1.23456789012345678901234567890 * 1.23456789012345678901234567890'

>   1.52415787532388367504953515625361987875019051998750190521

pl -Mbigrat 'echo 1/23456789012345678901234567890 * 1/23456789012345678901234567890'
pl -Mbigrat 'e 1/23456789012345678901234567890 * 1/23456789012345678901234567890'

>   1/550220950769700970248437984536198787501905199875019052100

Primes

This calculates all primes in a given range, e.g. 2 to 99. This requires Perl 5.18, which introduced all:

pl 'echo grep { $a = $_; all { $a % $_ } 2..$_/2 } 2..99'
pl 'e grep { $a = $_; all { $a % $_ } 2..$_/2 } 2..99'

>   2 3 5 7 11 13 17 19 23 29 31 37 41 43 47 53 59 61 67 71 73 79 83 89 97

Separate big numbers with commas, ...

Loop and print with line-end (-opl) over remaining args in $_. If reading from stdin or files, instead of arguments, use only -pl. After a decimal dot, insert a comma before each 4th comma-less digit. Then do the same backwards from end or decimal dot:

pl -opl '1 while s/[,.]\d{3}\K(?=\d)/,/; 1 while s/\d\K(?=\d{3}(?:$|[.,]))/,/' \
    12345678 123456789 1234567890 1234.5678 3.141 3.14159265358

>   12,345,678
>   123,456,789
>   1,234,567,890
>   1,234.567,8
>   3.141
>   3.141,592,653,58

The same for languages with a decimal comma, using either a dot or a space as spacer:

pl -opl '1 while s/[,.]\d{3}\K(?=\d)/./; 1 while s/\d\K(?=\d{3}(?:$|[.,]))/./' \
    12345678 12345678 1234567890 1234,5678 3,141 3,141592653589

>   12.345.678
>   12.345.678
>   1.234.567.890
>   1.234,567.8
>   3,141
>   3,141.592.653.589

pl -opl '1 while s/[, ]\d{3}\K(?=\d)/ /; 1 while s/\d\K(?=\d{3}(?:$|[ ,]))/ /' \
    12345678 12345678 1234567890 1234,5678 3,141 3,141592653589

>   12 345 678
>   12 345 678
>   1 234 567 890
>   1 234,567 8
>   3,141
>   3,141 592 653 589

The same for Perl style output with underscores:

pl -opl '1 while s/[._]\d{3}\K(?=\d)/_/; 1 while s/\d\K(?=\d{3}(?:$|[._]))/_/' \
    12345678 123456789 1234567890 1234.5678 3.141 3.14159265358

>   12_345_678
>   123_456_789
>   1_234_567_890
>   1_234.567_8
>   3.141
>   3.141_592_653_58

Miscellaneous

Renumber Shell Parameters

If you want to insert another parameter before $2, you have to renumber $2 - $8 respectively to $3 - $9. The same applies to Perl regexp match variables. This matches and replaces them, including optional braces. Apply in your editor to the corresponding region:

echo 'random Shell stuff with $1 - $2 - x${3}yz' |
    pl -p 's/\$\{?\K([2-8])\b/$1 + 1/eg'

>   random Shell stuff with $1 - $3 - x${4}yz

Find Palindromes

This assumes a dictionary on your machine. It loops over the file printing each match -P. It eliminates trivials like I, mom & dad with a minimum length:

pl -Pl 'length > 3 and $_ eq reverse' /usr/share/dict/words

>   boob
>   civic
>   deed
>   deified
>   kayak
>   kook
>   level
>   ma'am
>   madam
>   minim
>   noon
>   peep
>   poop
>   radar
>   redder
>   refer
>   rotor
>   sagas
>   sees
>   sexes
>   shahs
>   solos
>   stats
>   tenet
>   toot

Generate a random UUID

Lottery: a tax on people who are bad at math. :-)

This gives a hex number with the characteristic pattern of dashes. The hex format takes only the integral parts of the random numbers. If you need to further process the UUID, you can retrieve it instead of echoing, by giving a scalar context, e.g. $x = form ...:

pl '$x = "%04x"; form "$x$x-$x-$x-$x-$x$x$x", map rand 0x10000, 0..7'
pl '$x = "%04x"; f "$x$x-$x-$x-$x-$x$x$x", map rand 0x10000, 0..7'

>   5db1227d-83c1-6dd2-20f9-0e5c13b631a3

To be RFC 4122 conformant, the 4 version & 2 variant bits need to have standard values. Note that Shell strings can span more than one line:

pl '@u = map rand 0x10000, 0..7; ($u[3] /= 16) |= 0x4000; ($u[4] /= 4) |= 0x8000;
    $x = "%04x"; form "$x$x-$x-$x-$x-$x$x$x", @u'
pl '@u = map rand 0x10000, 0..7; ($u[3] /= 16) |= 0x4000; ($u[4] /= 4) |= 0x8000;
    $x = "%04x"; f "$x$x-$x-$x-$x-$x$x$x", @u'

>   cf59581b-a65f-47b1-84b6-d155c30c2b44

Generate a random password

Why should you trust atoms? They make up everything. :-)

Use say, which doesn't put spaces between its arguments. Generate twelve random characters between 33 & 127, i.e. printable Ascii characters:

pl 'say map chr(33 + rand 94), 1..12'

>   qt2c;0a5TnTB

DNS lookup

What do you call a sheep with no legs? A cloud. *,=,

The h(osts) function deals with the nerdy details and outputs as a hosts file. The file is sorted by address type (localhost, link local, private, public), version (IPv4, IPv6) and address. You tack on any number of IP-addresses or hostnames, either as Perl arguments or on the command-line via @A(RGV):

pl 'hosts qw(perl.org 127.0.0.1 perldoc.perl.org cpan.org)'
pl 'h qw(perl.org 127.0.0.1 perldoc.perl.org cpan.org)'

>   127.0.0.1 localhost
>   147.75.38.240 cpan.org perl.org
>   151.101.14.217 perldoc.perl.org
>   2a04:4e42:3::729 perldoc.perl.org

pl 'hosts @ARGV' perl.org 127.0.0.1 perldoc.perl.org cpan.org
pl 'h @A' perl.org 127.0.0.1 perldoc.perl.org cpan.org

If you don't want it to be merged & sorted, call h(osts) for individual addresses:

pl 'hosts for qw(perl.org 127.0.0.1 perldoc.perl.org cpan.org)'
pl 'h for qw(perl.org 127.0.0.1 perldoc.perl.org cpan.org)'

>   147.75.38.240 perl.org
>   127.0.0.1 localhost
>   151.101.14.217 perldoc.perl.org
>   2a04:4e42:3::729 perldoc.perl.org
>   147.75.38.240 cpan.org

pl -o hosts perl.org 127.0.0.1 perldoc.perl.org cpan.org
pl -o h perl.org 127.0.0.1 perldoc.perl.org cpan.org

If your input comes from files, collect it in a list and perform at end (-E):

pl -lnE 'hosts @list' 'push @list, $_' file*
pl -lnE 'h @list' 'push @list, $_' file*

Quine

I feel more like I do now than I did a while ago. (-:

A quine is a program that prints itself. This uses inside knowledge of that your program compiles to a function. The 2nd echo decompiles and pretty-prints it. Because its return value is used, it returns it, instead of printing. Surrounding boilerplate is replaced by pl ''. Both the long and short form are quines. This requires at least Perl 5.16, which introduced __SUB__:

pl 'echo grep({tr/\n / /s; s/.*: \{ /pl $quote/u; s/; \}.*/$quote/u;} echo(__SUB__))'
pl 'e grep({tr/\n / /s; s/.*: \{ /pl $q/u; s/; \}.*/$q/u;} e(__SUB__))'

>   pl 'echo grep({tr/\n / /s; s/.*: \{ /pl $quote/u; s/; \}.*/$quote/u;} echo(__SUB__))'
>   pl 'e grep({tr/\n / /s; s/.*: \{ /pl $q/u; s/; \}.*/$q/u;} e(__SUB__))'

Even though decompilation rarely comes up as a quine no-go, indirectly the above does read its source. So it might be considered a cheating quine. To placate those who think so, here's a constructive way of doing it, with a format string that gets fed to itself:

pl '$_ = q{$_ = q{%s}; form "pl $quote$_$quote", $_}; form "pl $quote$_$quote", $_'
pl '$_ = q{$_ = q{%s}; f "pl $q$_$q", $_}; f "pl $q$_$q", $_'

>   pl '$_ = q{$_ = q{%s}; form "pl $quote$_$quote", $_}; form "pl $quote$_$quote", $_'
>   pl '$_ = q{$_ = q{%s}; f "pl $q$_$q", $_}; f "pl $q$_$q", $_'

The same approach, but without adding pl '', so this works only in the pl-Shell, which you start by calling pl without arguments. In the spirit of Code Golf, made it very compact. This is inspired by the shortest Perl quine, which we beat by 6 characters in the short form. That uses x2 to duplicate the argument to the pre-prototypes printf. But f(orm) has a prototype. So use the &-syntax to prevent it giving 2 (the length of the list):

&form(qw(&form(qw(%s)x2))x2)
&f(qw(&f(qw(%s)x2))x2)

>   &form(qw(&form(qw(%s)x2))x2)
>   &f(qw(&f(qw(%s)x2))x2)

Just another pl hacker,

If you can't convince 'em, confuse 'em! ;-)

Just another Perl hacker, adapted. This obfuscated mock turtle soup JAPH is left for you to figure out:

pl -plo y' ya-zyOoh, Turtleneck phrase Jar! 'y xguietlbickheqjectnokhd

>   Just another pl hacker,

To install App::pl, copy and paste the appropriate command in to your terminal.

cpanm

cpanm App::pl

CPAN shell

perl -MCPAN -e shell
install App::pl

For more information on module installation, please visit the detailed CPAN module installation guide.

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