Re^2: Hlelp regarding regex

[Anonymous Monk]

Sorry for the unclear spec...Hope the below is clear

Spec:- After the last "\" $x should match the pattern Y(digit)(number).The reason is "$x" is given as an option by the user and we use the letter to distinguish the location of some files,we only want to process locations with letter Y.Can you please help?

my $x = "\\\\files\\builds\\data\\M9998SBQCACSYD30401S";-->should matc
+h

my $x = "\\\\files\\builds\\data\\M9998SBQCACSAD30401S";-->Should not 
+match

[bart]

$x should match the pattern Y(digit)(number)

Surely you mean Y(letter)(number)?

Try this:

$x =~ /Y[A-Z]\d+[^\d\\]*$/

as in

for  my $x ("\\\\files\\builds\\data\\M9998SBQCACSYD30401S", "\\\\file
+s\\builds\\data\\M9998SBQCACSAD30401S") {
    if($x =~ /Y[A-Z]\d+[^\d\\]*$/) {
        print "$x matches\n";
    } else {
        print "$x doesn't match\n";
    }
}

which yields:

\\files\builds\data\M9998SBQCACSYD30401S matches
\\files\builds\data\M9998SBQCACSAD30401S doesn't match

([^\d\\] makes sure you matched the last number, and no backslash follows.)

[wind]

Ideally, you'd provide a list of more than 2 strings, but your description helps. The following will probably suit your needs:

my @list = (
    # Good
    "\\\\files\\builds\\data\\M9998SBQCACSYD30401S",
    # Bad
    "\\\\files\\builds\\data\\M9998SBQCACSAD30401S",
);

for my $x (@list) {
    if ($x =~ /Y[A-Z]\d[^\\]*$/){
        print "$x - matches\n";
    } else {
        print "$x - doesn't match\n";
    }
}

Given that these are file paths, I personally would rely on File::Basename or File::Spec to separate the filenames from the directories before doing the tests. That way the code would still work on other platforms.