Juerd:
> Ruud H.G. van Tol:
>> s/($search)/*\1*/go
>
> \1 in Perl 5 is bad style and emits a warning
The point was to give \1 and \&, in the replace part, a very limited
scope.
Maybe even better to limit \1 to the first '(?: ... )' in the search
part.
s/(?:$search)(?:.\1)+/\1/go
xy.xy.xy.xy --> xy
But if Perl6 can do the same with
s/($search)(.\1)+/$1/go
by detecting that the possible $1 and $2 and $& (or new equivalents) are
(almost certainly) not going to be used, that's of course best.
A '+' can often be optimized to a {2,}. In this case:
s/($search)+/$1/
only if the resulting count is never used.
--
Grtz, Ruud
