Replacing a segment with x's

[mpalmer12345]

$text = '<input type=hidden name="avkw" value="fogg">
<input type=hidden name="avkw" value="a be cee">';

Given this bit of code above, I wish to write a line that replaces all words between every instance of value="" with an equal number of xs. So the result should be:

<input type=hidden name="avkw" value="xxxx">
<input type=hidden name="avkw" value="x xx xxx">

I am this far towards a solution, but it doesn't work. I can't figure out why.

$t2 = $text;
$t2 =~ s/value="(^"*?)"/$repl x length($1)/ige;
$text =~ s/(value=")(^"*?)(")/$1$t2$3/ig;

Any assistance would be much appreciated!

 

[icrf]

Capture what you need, and pass it through a tranformation sub.

$text =~ s/value="([^"]+)"/'value="' . makeXs($1) . '"'/gie;

sub makeXs {
        my $s = shift;
        $s =~ s/\S/x/g;
        return $s;
}

Surely there's other ways, but this is the first that came to mind.

________________________________________
Andrew - Perl Monkey

 

[mpalmer12345]

Thanks! It works like a charm! I wasn't familiar with the subroutine approach, so I appreciate learning that.