On 1 Oct 2002 at 18:47, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> > > all text up to, but not including the string "union".
> >
> > rule getstuffbeforeunion { (.*?) union | (.*) }
> >
> > "a union" => "a "
> > "b" => "b"
>
> hmm... well, it works, but its not very efficient. It basically
> scans the whole string to the end to see if there is a "union" string, and
> then backtracks to take the alternative. And hence, its not very scalable.
> It also doesn't 'complexify' very well.
What about
Perl 5: /(.*?)(?:union|$)/
Perl 6: /(.*?) [union | $$]/
or if you want to exlude 'union' from match
Perl 5: /(.*?)(?=union|$)/
Perl 6: /(.*?) [<after: union> | $$]/
IMHO those should scan string one char at a time until 'union' or end-
of-string, which is optimal solution.
--
Markus Laire 'malaire' <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
