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Re: perl look ahead regular expression that is optional?

by talexb (Chancellor)
on Oct 04, 2013 at 14:51 UTC ( [id://1056889]=note: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??


in reply to perl look ahead regular expression that is optional?

Well, this post has been fascinating to work on. I was starting to question my ability to comprehend the English language (my mother tongue), and this morning re-read your post, including the part that said

    When the second set is present, it is always prececeded by an 'X':

That's it, I thought -- but then I re-read the part above that says

    The second set of characters is always preceded by an X (to delimit that this is the second set) and might contain a b or c, Only zero or one a, zero or one b, and zero or one c is allowed in the second set.

So the second set *always* starts with an 'X', and *might* contain a, b or c. How can I prove this? By writing a script to grind through all of the permutations, of course.

Here's the script that I wrote:

#!/usr/bin/perl use strict; use warnings; use Data::Dumper; # Build all possible strings based on the following three rules: # 1. Start with 'foobar' # 2. Optionally include first set: # a. zero or one 'a'; # b. zero or one 'b'; and # c. zero or one 'c'. # 3. Optionally include second set: # a. 'X' # b. zero or one 'a'; # c. zero or one 'b'; and # d. zero or one 'c'. my ( @w, %solutions ); { @w = ('foobar'); for my $firstSet ( 0 .. 1 ) { for my $a1 ( 0 .. 1 ) { for my $b1 ( 0 .. 1 ) { for my $c1 ( 0 .. 1 ) { for my $secondSet ( 0 .. 1 ) { for my $a2 ( 0 .. 1 ) { for my $b2 ( 0 .. 1 ) { for my $c2 ( 0 .. 1 ) { if ($firstSet) { if ($a1) { addThisChar('a'); } if ($b1) { addThisChar('b'); } if ($c1) { addThisChar('c'); } } if ($secondSet) { addThisChar('X'); if ($a2) { addThisChar('a'); } if ($b2) { addThisChar('b'); } if ($c2) { addThisChar('c'); } } saveThatPattern(); } } } } } } } } for my $key ( sort { $solutions{$b} <=> $solutions{$a} } sort keys %solutions ) { print " $key => $solutions{ $key }\n"; } } sub addThisChar { push( @w, shift ); } sub saveThatPattern { $solutions{ join( '', @w ) }++; @w = ('foobar'); + }
When I run this, I get the following result:
tab@music3:/../Perlmongers$ perl -w 1056774-2.pl foobar => 72 foobarX => 9 foobarXa => 9 foobarXab => 9 foobarXabc => 9 foobarXac => 9 foobarXb => 9 foobarXbc => 9 foobarXc => 9 foobara => 8 foobarab => 8 foobarabc => 8 foobarac => 8 foobarb => 8 foobarbc => 8 foobarc => 8 foobaraX => 1 foobaraXa => 1 foobaraXab => 1 foobaraXabc => 1 foobaraXac => 1 foobaraXb => 1 foobaraXbc => 1 foobaraXc => 1 foobarabX => 1 foobarabXa => 1 foobarabXab => 1 foobarabXabc => 1 foobarabXac => 1 foobarabXb => 1 foobarabXbc => 1 foobarabXc => 1 foobarabcX => 1 foobarabcXa => 1 foobarabcXab => 1 foobarabcXabc => 1 foobarabcXac => 1 foobarabcXb => 1 foobarabcXbc => 1 foobarabcXc => 1 foobaracX => 1 foobaracXa => 1 foobaracXab => 1 foobaracXabc => 1 foobaracXac => 1 foobaracXb => 1 foobaracXbc => 1 foobaracXc => 1 foobarbX => 1 foobarbXa => 1 foobarbXab => 1 foobarbXabc => 1 foobarbXac => 1 foobarbXb => 1 foobarbXbc => 1 foobarbXc => 1 foobarbcX => 1 foobarbcXa => 1 foobarbcXab => 1 foobarbcXabc => 1 foobarbcXac => 1 foobarbcXb => 1 foobarbcXbc => 1 foobarbcXc => 1 foobarcX => 1 foobarcXa => 1 foobarcXab => 1 foobarcXabc => 1 foobarcXac => 1 foobarcXb => 1 foobarcXbc => 1 foobarcXc => 1 tab@music3:/../Perlmongers$
And sure enough, foobarabcX is there. So I'm now convinced that the original specification was broken.

Alex / talexb / Toronto

Thanks PJ. We owe you so much. Groklaw -- RIP -- 2003 to 2013.

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