Re: regular expressions with commas?

[osunderdog]

Well, here is what I would start with:

use strict;

 while(<DATA>)
 {
     #using re match.
     # match beginning, anything except comma,
     # followed by a comma and 'Y'
     if(m/^([^,]+),Y/)
     {   
         print "RE Name:" . $1 . "\n";
     }
}


__DATA__
davis,N
brown,Y
smith,Y,N,B
jones,N,Y,B,A
clarke,Y,N,Y

Or Perhaps:

use strict;

 while(<DATA>)
 {
     my @data = split(',');

     if($data[1] eq 'Y')
     {   
         print "RE Name:" . $data[0] . "\n";
     }
}


__DATA__
davis,N
brown,Y
smith,Y,N,B
jones,N,Y,B,A
clarke,Y,N,Y

[chas]

Those both match given the string "Blah,Y,X", which has a substring ending with ",Y", but doesn't itself end with that sequence. (It isn't completely clear to me what the OP wanted, though...)

[osunderdog]

I interpreted it as meaning a ",Y" after the name string. Many others interpreted it as meaning a ",Y" at the end of the line. The OP wasn't clear so I figure I would share my interpretation.

[webshark]

cheers guys... works a treat..