The pattern
/^(.+?)\1*(.+?)(?:\1|\2)*(.+?)(?:\1|\2|\3)+$/ will find the three patterns and put them in $1, $2, and $3. You can use a function to build this regex:
sub findpattern
{
my $data = shift;
my $num = shift;
my $re;
my $i;
my @retval;
$re = '^';
for($i = 1; $i <= $num; $i++)
{
$re .= '(.+?)(?:'.join('|', map("\\$_", 1..$i)).')';
if($i == $num)
{
$re .= '+';
}
else
{
$re .= '*';
}
}
$re .= '$';
if($data =~ /$re/)
{
for($i = 1; $i <= $num; $i++)
{
push(@retval, ${$i});
}
return @retval;
}
return undef;
}
If passed the data and the number of patterns it will return a list of the patterns or undef if unable to find them (at least one pattern must be repeated more than once).