Re: regexp: least inclusive match?

If the marker is a plain string (as in the example, without regex specials), substr and rindex ought to do the job:

my $idx = rindex($text, "Tags");
if ($idx > -1) {
  substr($text, $idx) = '';
}
[download]

Otherwise you could for instance take advantage of * being greedy from the start:

$text =~ s/(.*)Tags.*/$1/s;
[download]

print "Just another Perl ${\(trickster and hacker)},"
The Sidhekin proves Sidhe did it!

Comment on Re: regexp: least inclusive match? Select or Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^2: regexp: least inclusive match? by varian (Chaplain) on Mar 03, 2007 at 11:03 UTC
Sidhekin is right, with a minor change the regex will work. This is because principle 0 of regex says Principle 0: Taken as a whole, any regexp will be matched at the earliest possible position in the string So while your '.+?' dictates a preference for the smallest amount of characters to match, in the end this preference is overruled.	[reply]