Patterns for your numbers

[bronto]

Starting to elucubrate from these nodes and perlnumber, I am wondering: which pattern (or patterns) cover any possible valid string representation of a number in Perl, leaving version numbers out?

What about these?

• Integer: ^\s*[+-]?\d+\s*$
• Binary: ^\s*[+-]?0b[0-1]+\s*$
• Octal: ^\s*[+-]?0[0-7]+\s*$
• Hexadecimal: ^\s*[+-]?0x[0-9a-fA-F]+\s*$
• With decimals: ^\s*[+-]?\d+\.\d*\s*$
• Exponential: ^\s*[+-]?\d+(\.\d*)?[Ee][+-]?\d+$

Ciao!
--bronto

---

The very nature of Perl to be like natural language--inconsistant and full of dwim and special cases--makes it impossible to know it all without simply memorizing the documentation (which is not complete or totally correct anyway).
--John M. Dlugosz

[adrianh]

Take a look at Regexp::Common::number. All the above and more.

[bronto]

Thanks for the link, adrianh, it's on my notepad now.

Anyway, as I said in the question, I am not looking for a module, nor I am looking for such a grainlevel control over "numeric strings".

Call it a challenge (if you like): are those patterns ok? Would you write them differently for the sake of {efficiency|compactness|speed|readability|anything}? Would you compact all af them in a unique, catchall regex?

That was the question.

Please, don't feel offended about that: pointers to modules that do the job are useful and I don't despise them. But they are not an answer to the question

Ciao!
--bronto

---

The very nature of Perl to be like natural language--inconsistant and full of dwim and special cases--makes it impossible to know it all without simply memorizing the documentation (which is not complete or totally correct anyway).
--John M. Dlugosz

[jryan]

Take a read at this entry in perlfaq4.