http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=312141

SavannahLion has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I'm hoping someone can clarify some behavior for me.
I have the following two code blocks I'm fiddling with. First I tried the following block.
my $phrase = "This is a test, \"using quotes of 'two different' types.
+\"";
$phrase =~ s/[\S*\W*]//g;
print $phrase;

[download]

For some reason, the regex destroys the entire line. Therefor, print just prints a blank line. So after some fiddling I came up with the following block.
my $phrase = "This is a test, \"using quotes of 'two different' types.
+\"";
$phrase =~ s/[^\s*\w*]//g;
print $phrase;

[download]

Which does exactly what I was aiming for in the first place. It produces the following line: This is a test using quotes of two different types All quotes, periods, and everything else has been stripped.

In my llama book it states that [^\s] is the same as \S and [^\w] is the same as \W. Now, from what I understand so far, the first block of code should have worked, but it didn't.
Why is that?

Is it fair to stick a link to my site here?

Thanks for you patience.

Back to Seekers of Perl Wisdom