Searching for a specific pattern.

[Anonymous Monk]

Hi Monks!
I working on a code and I have to search for a specific letters code coming from a file, the values I am checking against are: XLX or TLX or XLT or LX.
I am doinf a simple check like this:

my $type="LX";
if( $type=~/LX/)
 {
   do stuff ...
}

I know that this wouldn't work because all the other letter codes has the "LX" in them, that would fail, correct?
I am doing this way:

my $type="LX"
if( $type=~/\bLX\b/)
 {
   do stuff ...
}

Is this way the more reliable way to get "LX" by using word boundary or there is a better and more efficient way to do this?
Thanks for the help!

[phenom]

If you're looking for EXACTLY "LX", then just use 'eq':

if( $type eq 'LX' ) {

[Anonymous Monk]

I can't use that, using XML::XPATH, I need to use regular expression for this.

[ikegami]

I don't see the relation between XPaths and regular expressions, but /^LX\z/ checks for exactly "LX".

( An XPath that checks the value of an attribute would look like /foo/bar[@type="LX"] )

[almut]

If you want to avoid that the "LX" etc. will match substrings of words, then yes, using word boundary markers is the way to go.