Re^3: String Matching

[Jenda]

They are greedy, but not too clever

my $str = "xaxaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa";
$str =~ /(a+)/;
print "$1\n";
# prints "a" not "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa"

The quantifiers are greedy, but they refuse to let go of something they found unless forced even if they could get more someplace later.

[AnomalousMonk]

I'll see you and raise you.   /(a*)/ (note * quantifier in place of +) matches, but captures nothing, not even a single 'a'.

>perl -wMstrict -le
"my $s = 'xaxaaaaa';
 print qq{matched, captured '$1'} if $s =~ /(a*)/;
"
matched, captured ''

[Anonymous Monk]

Um, they start from the left, stop when they find a match -- that is clever

[frozenwithjoy]

And predictable! I'd hate to regex in a world that wasn't predictable.