Is there anything that would not be matched by /\w\W/i ?

[pileswasp]

[arhuman]

Assuming you talk about /[\w\W]/i the answer is (AFAIK) everything is matched (I've tested french char with accent, spaces, newlines...) except empty string of course...

Otherwise /\w\W/i doesn't match a lot of things...

[pileswasp]

Yep, that was what I was talking about, but it was very early in the morning when the question came up :o)

[alfie]

There are quite many strings that doesn't match your pattern: Everything that contains only of
• word characters
• non-word characters
• non-word characters followed by word-characters
• the empty string
If you meant what arhuman thought (/[\w\W]/i) he has forgot that it wouldn't match the empty string, even then.

[larryk]

yes. \w matches any "word" character = [a-zA-Z_0-9]. \W matches anything else. the /i makes no difference in this example (it does not make the regex /[\w\W][\W\w]/ as I think you may believe).

The following will not match:

• empty strings
• single character strings
• any 2 character string with a \W char followed by a \w char (e.g. '*f', '£L', '+3' etc.)
• any string > 2 chars comprised solely of \w or \W chars (e.g. 'abcdef', '%^£$' etc.)
Can't think of any more! Hope this helps - larryk

"Argument is futile - you will be ignorralated!"

[tye]

Replace your third entry above with:

• a string of \W chars followed by \w chars (e.g. '*%$abc')
Just FYI. (:
        - tye (but my friends call me "Tye")

[mpolo]

Yes. For instance:

$_="x";
print "Matched" if /\w\W/i;

will not print Matched. It's easy to have a string that contains no non-word characters.