Hi, merry Xmas,
This RE doesn't do what I expected:
#!perl -w
$_ = 'data 1
data 2
data 3
head 1
head 2
head 3';
my $a = /^dat.*\n #match 1st line
(?s) #turn on . matching any char
(.*?3)/x; #should match data 2 and 3
print 'result: ',$a,', $1=',$1||'no match',"\n";
1;
__END__
result: 1, $1=head 3
I thought that '^dat.*\n' would match only the 1st line 'data 1', because '.' doesn't
match a new line.
Then '(?s)' should make '.' match any char, including new line.
Then '(.*?3)' should match lines 'data 2' and 'data 3'.
It's not what happens. Anyone can explain ?
If the 1st part of the RE is ^dat.*?\n, then:
result: 1, $1=data 2
data 3
Why do we have to make it ungreedy ? Thanks.
MacPerl 5.20r4
