On Fri, 2006-06-30 at 23:04 +0200, Filip Jursik wrote: > Hi, > > this > > $text = "first first second third"; > $text =~ /(first.*?third)/; > print $1; > > gives me > > "first first second third" > > as a result instead of expected > > "first second third" > > What am I doing wrong? I've expected the .*? to limit the wildcard only to > the > string " second ".
I don't have the precise answer for you but I do know what is wrong. The way regex' match is they start at character 0 and start attempting to match your expression by reading one additional character until they get to the end of the string. If the end of the string is reached without a match, it starts over at character 1, expanding one character at a time. It repeats this process until it either matches, or tries every possibility. There are examples in the archives about how to overcome this. However, I am unable to find them at the moment. I'm sorry for not having the real answer to your question. -- Joshua Colson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <http://learn.perl.org/> <http://learn.perl.org/first-response>
