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Re^2: Selecting HL7 Transactions

by BillDowns (Novice)
on May 01, 2013 at 23:22 UTC ( [id://1031671]=note: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??


in reply to Re: Selecting HL7 Transactions
in thread Selecting HL7 Transactions

Thanks, but I guess I did not make it clear - this is a utility script that extracts transactions from an archive based on the regular expressions I give it at run time. That's all it does - extracts transactions to a file.

/PV1\|1\|O\|(.*?\|){3}\|/ was one of several regexes evaluated by itself. If all are true, the transaction is extract to an output file.

I know about anchors - PV1 segments are a ways into the transaction as I showed in the sample, so I could not use an anchor.

The parentheses are used for the repeat factor. All my research on the internet indicates a multi-character pattern that needs to be repeated multiple times should be enclosed in parentheses. Is this not correct?

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Re^3: Selecting HL7 Transactions
by kcott (Archbishop) on May 02, 2013 at 00:20 UTC
    "The parentheses are used for the repeat factor. All my research on the internet indicates a multi-character pattern that needs to be repeated multiple times should be enclosed in parentheses. Is this not correct?"

    Here's a test showing clustering and capturing. Both match as expected. Capturing also sets $1.

    $ perl -Mstrict -Mwarnings -E ' my $re1 = qr{PV1\|1\|O\|(?:[^|]*\|){3}\|}; my $re2 = qr{PV1\|1\|O\|([^|]*\|){3}\|}; my $x = q{PV1|1|O|F3|F4|F5|F6|F7}; my $y = q{PV1|1|O|F3|F4|F5||F7}; say "------- Clustering -------"; say "Match in \$x" if $x =~ /$re1/; say $1 if $1; say "Match in \$y" if $y =~ /$re1/; say $1 if $1; say "------- Capturing -------"; say "Match in \$x" if $x =~ /$re2/; say $1 if $1; say "Match in \$y" if $y =~ /$re2/; say $1 if $1; ' ------- Clustering ------- Match in $y ------- Capturing ------- Match in $y F5|

    -- Ken

      On a different note, since you seem quite knowledgeable about Perl, and again referring to google searches, non-greedy matching is usually defined in a manner that  (.*?\|) and  ([^|]*\|) should be equivalent. And I think so, too. Why are they not?

        Ignoring the issue with newlines and the "s" modifier that I alluded to earlier, the heart of the matter is that "." matches any character while "[^|]" matches any character except the pipe character.

        Taken in isolation, /(.*?\|)/ and /([^|]*\|)/ may well produce the same result:

        $ perl -Mstrict -Mwarnings -E ' my $x = q{A|||||Z}; my $dot_re = qr{(.*?\|)}; my $cc_re = qr{([^|]*\|)}; $x =~ $dot_re; say $1; $x =~ $cc_re; say $1; ' A| A|

        The reasons they do this, however, are different. "A" is the least number [non-greedy] of zero or more of any characters (".*?") that match before a literal pipe character ("\|"). It just so happens that "A" is also the greatest number [greedy] of zero or more non-pipe characters ("[^|]*") that match before a literal pipe character ("\|"). So, in both cases "A|" is captured.

        Now consider the following where the capture groups are no longer in isolation:

        $ perl -Mstrict -Mwarnings -E ' my $x = q{A|||||Z}; my $dot_re = qr{(.*?\|)Z}; my $cc_re = qr{([^|]*\|)Z}; $x =~ $dot_re; say $1; $x =~ $cc_re; say $1; ' A||||| |

        Here, "A||||" is the least number [non-greedy] of zero or more of any characters (".*?") that match before a literal pipe character ("\|") that is immediately followed by a literal Z character: "A||||" plus "|" are captured. However, "" (i.e. nothing) is the greatest number [greedy] of zero or more non-pipe characters ("[^|]*") that match before a literal pipe character ("\|") that is immediately followed by a literal Z character: "" plus "|" are captured.

        I recommend you take a look at Regexp::Debugger which provides a visualisation of Perl's regular expression engine in action — I think you'll find it most enlightening.

        I'd also recommend you look at the Perl documentation (available online at http://perldoc.perl.org/perl.html) before reaching for an internet search engine. Here's a list of Perl regular expression documentation that you'll find linked from that page:

        • perlrequick — Perl regular expressions quick start
        • perlretut — Perl regular expressions tutorial
        • perlfaq6 — Perl frequently asked questions: Regexes
        • perlre — Perl regular expressions, the rest of the story
        • perlrebackslash — Perl regular expression backslash sequences
        • perlrecharclass — Perl regular expression character classes
        • perlreref — Perl regular expressions quick reference

        That's the order the links appear on that page: look at them in whatever order you want. To be honest, I was a little surprised there was so many; had I realised in advanced, I might not have chosen to start enumerating them all here.

        -- Ken

      Thanks for that info - I did not know about clustering. It does not show up in the first half-dozen google searches on regular expressions. In this case, it doesn't matter - the utility script doesn't care about any capturing. It is simply qualifying.
        Sorry - forgot to log in first. That was me :)

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