Task — Replace words

You are given an array of words and a sentence. Write a script to replace all words in the given sentence that start with any of the words in the given array.

Examples

Example 1
Input: @words = ("cat", "bat", "rat")
       $sentence = "the cattle was rattle by 
	   the battery"
Output: "the cat was rat by the bat"

Example 2
Input: @words = ("a", "b", "c")
       $sentence = "aab aac and cac bab"
Output: "a a a c b"

Example 3
Input: @words = ("man", "bike")
       $sentence = "the manager was hit by a biker"
Output: "the man was hit by a bike"

Analysis

Without compromising my preference for readable code I think this can be an almost-one-liner.

First we stick a space at the start of $sentence, and then this will do it:

$sentence =~ s| $_\w+| $_|g for @words;	

That says find a space followed by one of the words followed by any other letters, and replace it with just the word - and do that for each word.

Try it 

Try running the script with any input:

Your $sentence =

example: the cattle sat on the mattress

Your @words =

example: mat, cat

⤡

#!/usr/bin/perl

# Blog: http://ccgi.campbellsmiths.force9.co.uk/challenge

use v5.26;    # The Weekly Challenge - 2024-12-09
use utf8;     # Week 299 - task 1 - Replace words
use warnings; # Peter Campbell Smith
binmode STDOUT, ':utf8';

replace_words(['cat', 'bat', 'rat'], 'the cattle were rattled by the battery');
replace_words(['a', 'b', 'c'], 'aab aac and cac bab');
replace_words(['six', 'three', 'four', 'one', 'five', 'two'],
    'oneway twotime threesome fourfold fiver sixty');

sub replace_words {
    
    my (@words, $sentence);
    
    # initialise
    @words = @{$_[0]};
    $sentence = ' ' . $_[1];
    say qq[\nInput:  \@words = ('] . join(q[', '], @words) . qq['), \$sentence = '$_[1]'];
    
    # do it and report
    $sentence =~ s| $_\w+| $_|g for @words; 
    say qq[Output:$sentence];
}

Output

Input:  @words = ('cat', 'bat', 'rat'), 
  $sentence = 'the cattle were rattled by the battery'
Output: the cat were rat by the bat

Input:  @words = ('a', 'b', 'c'), 
  $sentence = 'aab aac and cac bab'
Output: a a a c b

Input:  @words = ('six', 'three', 'four', 'one', 
	'five', 'two'), $sentence = 'oneway twotime 
	threesome fourfold fiver sixty'
Output: one two three four five six