Re: Alternation in Effective Perl Programming Example

It's a little more than that. Should it be (?:\\\W|.) instead?

If so, as written, it would be interpreted as non-capturing parenthesis, matching either a backslash and a nonword character or a single character.

Otherwise, it's (an optional colon followed by a backslash and a non-word character) or (a single character).

Comment on Re: Alternation in Effective Perl Programming Example

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Re: Re: Alternation in Effective Perl Programming Example by a (Friar) on Dec 07, 2000 at 09:43 UTC
Appears to be (looking at Effective perl) a typo, as the chapter leans heavily on (?: just before the example. You should mention it to merlyn as its not in the errata (neither is the misspelled 'Eart' on page 64 ;-) a	[reply]
Re: Re: Re: Alternation in Effective Perl Programming Example by a (Friar) on Dec 07, 2000 at 21:50 UTC
And, to the original question: I think the idea is to 'inch along' `for (split m!("(?:\\\W\|.)?"\|/\\|\/)!) {` [download] will return the pieces ending w/ an escaped non-word char, a single char or the comment begin/end markers. Hmm, an escaped non-word char or a single char in quotes? No, as many \\\w\|. as found between quotes. I guess so: `biff = "not a comment /"; /* marker for not a comment */` [download] won't start $in_comment too early. a	[reply] [d/l] [select]