Roy Johnson,
Wow - thanks! That's neat, but I am not sure if it fits the bill. If my understanding of this is correct, it basically ignores subsequent matches if a match has already been found. If that is technically accurate, it fails in that it still checks to see if there is a match before deciding to ignore it.
This really is a meditation about being able to modify the optree (or the p6 equivalent) while the code is running and what you would do with it if you could. I provided the example of removing a conditional block once the condition has been met and the block ran once. This means not even the condition itself is checked, it would just be "gone". This, I am sure, is not the only application.
| [reply] [Watch: Dir/Any] |
This code illustrates that the op only performs the match once:
my $type;
my $r = qr/(?{print "$type\n"})/;
for (1..3) {
$type = 'Regular';
/$r/;
$type = 'Once only';
?$r?;
}
On the broader subject of modifying the optree...well, it hasn't really occurred to me very often. The most common reason to do it is to introduce new syntax, which I guess is what you're suggesting, after a fashion. If I were up to it, I would probably want to implement a new operator.
(update: But there's more to adding syntax than modifying the optree. It's gotta parse, too.)
Caution: Contents may have been coded under pressure.
| [reply] [Watch: Dir/Any] [d/l] |