Re: Alternation in Effective Perl Programming Example

[chromatic]

It's a little more than that. Should it be (?:\\\W|.) instead?

If so, as written, it would be interpreted as non-capturing parenthesis, matching either a backslash and a nonword character or a single character.

Otherwise, it's (an optional colon followed by a backslash and a non-word character) or (a single character).

[a]

Appears to be (looking at Effective perl) a typo, as the chapter leans heavily on (?: just before the example. You should mention it to merlyn as its not in the errata (neither is the misspelled 'Eart' on page 64 ;-)

a

[a]

And, to the original question: I think the idea is to 'inch along'

  for (split m!("(?:\\\W|.)*?"|/\*|\*/)!) {

will return the pieces ending w/ an escaped non-word char, a single char or the comment begin/end markers. Hmm, an escaped non-word char or a single char in quotes? No, as many \\\w|. as found between quotes. I guess so:

biff = "not a comment /*";
/* marker for not a comment */

won't start $in_comment too early.

a