Re: counting overlapping patterns

[saintmike]

You need to tell the regex engine to pick up after the last match, using the \G anchor:

    my $count  = 0;
    my $string = "AAAA";

    $count++ while $string =~ /\GAA/gc;

Argh, sorry, I was wrong. Check out this thread instead.

[Anonymous Monk]

Ah... the \G anchor, of course.... it doesn't seem to work for me. Still getting 2. Are my cut-n-paste skills poor?

[holli]

This returns 2. Reasonable because the position of the last match is right after the 2nd "A".
I´d like to be disproven, but i think this cannot be solved by a simple regex.
Disproven ,)

[dave_the_m]

$count++ while $string =~ /\GAA/gc;

Er, no, the \G there serves no purpose as that's the default behaviour anyway. On this other hand this will work, by only consuming the first character of the match:

$count++ while $string =~ /A(?=A)/g;

Dave.

[Anonymous Monk]

Dave you truly are "the m". That works as promised. Thanks!