Re: Re: Re: Re:{2} Getting impossible things right (behaviour of keys)

[blakem]

Ah, but you dont *need* to sort by length... the regex is anchored at the end, so the pattern that matches first from left to right will *already be* the longest match. For instance, look at the following code:

#!/usr/bin/perl -wT
use strict;

my $text = 'fedcba';
$text =~ (/(a|ba|cba|dcba)$/);

print "Match: $1\n";

=OUTPUT
Match: dcba

It matches on the longest one, even though its at the end of the alternation.... thats because the regex engine works from left to right, and the first one that matches wins. That was the whole point of my post, sorry I wasn't more explicit.

-Blake

[demerphq]

Yes I see it now. Leftmost longest. I omitted the implication of the $. I should have caught the hint.

Good one. :-)

Yves / DeMerphq
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[blakem]

Well, it was my last post of the night, and I skimped on the explanation so I could get some sleep ;-P

This thread illustrates why I try to post complete, self-contained scripts. (i.e. sample input via __DATA__, printed output samples, etc) I think much of the confusion could have been avoided, if the original script had a set of expected inputs and outputs.

-Blake