You will find the answer to your question in "Regexp Quote-Like Operators" in perlop - basically, different regex operations have different return values in different contexts. See also perlretut for a tutorial.
Operation |
Context |
() Capturing Groups |
Return Value on Match (and notes on behavior) |
Return Value on Failure |
Example |
m// |
scalar |
- |
true |
false |
my $x = "foobar"=~/[aeiou]/; # => $x is true
my $y = "foobar"=~/[xyz]/; # => $y is false
|
m//g |
scalar |
- |
true
(each execution of m//g finds the next match,
see "Global matching" in perlretut) |
false if there is no further match |
my $str = "foobar";
my $x = $str=~/[aeiou]/g;
# matches first "o" => $x is true, pos($str) is 2
$x = $str=~/[aeiou]/g;
# matches second "o" => $x is true, pos($str) is 3
$x = $str=~/[aeiou]/g;
# matches "a" => $x is true, pos($str) is 5
$x = $str=~/[aeiou]/g;
# no more matches => $x is false, pos($str) is undef
|
m// |
list |
no |
the list (1) |
the empty list () |
my ($x) = "foobar"=~/[aeiou]/; # => $x is 1
|
m//g |
list |
no |
a list of all the matched strings, as if there were parentheses around the whole pattern |
the empty list () |
my ($x,$y,$z) = "foobar"=~/[aeiou]/g;
# => $x is "o", $y is "o", $z is "a"
|
m// |
list |
yes |
a list consisting of the subexpressions matched by the parentheses in the pattern, that is, ($1, $2, $3...) |
the empty list () |
my ($x,$y) = "foobar"=~/([aeiou])(.)/;
# => $x is "o", $y is "o"
|
m//g |
list |
yes |
a list of the substrings matched by any capturing parentheses in the regular expression, that is, ($1, $2...) repeated for each match |
the empty list () |
my ($w,$x,$y,$z) = "foobar"=~/([aeiou])(.)/g;
# => $w is "o", $x is "o", $y is "a", $z is "r"
|
s/// |
- |
- |
the number of substitutions made |
false |
my $x = "foobar";
my $y = $x=~s/[aeiou]/x/g; # => $y is 3
|
s///r |
- |
- |
a copy of the original string with substitution(s) applied
(available since Perl 5.14) |
the original string |
my $x = "foobar"=~s/[aeiou]/x/gr;
# => $x is "fxxbxr"
|
In this table, "true" and "false" refer to Perl's notion of Truth and Falsehood. Remember not to rely on any of the capture variables like $1, $2, etc. unless the match succeeds!
In my $foo = "bar"=~/a/;, the right-hand side of the assignment ("bar"=~/a/) is in scalar context. In my ($foo) = "bar"=~/a/; or my @foo = "bar"=~/a/;, the right-hand side is in list context. That's why, in your example, you need those parens in ($value): because you want the matching operation to return the contents of the capture group.
Note that your expressions can be slightly simplified, not all the parens you showed are needed:
my ($value) = $row =~ /.*,(.*)/;
# and
$row =~ s/,[^,]*$//;
A few additional comments on your code:
- ($row =~ s/,[^,]*$//); # gets substring before the last comma - this comment isn't quite right or at least potentially misleading, since it deletes the string
before after and including the last comma.
- /.*,(.*)/ matches any comma anywhere in the string, for simple input strings it may behave correctly, but I'd strongly recommend coding more defensively and writing it like your second expression: my ($value) = $row=~/,([^,]*)$/; - the $ anchor makes sure that the regex only matches the last comma and what follows it (unless you use the /m modifier, since it changes the meaning of $).
- While the use of Scalar::Util's looks_like_number is often a good idea, note that if you don't mind being a little more restrictive, Regexp::Common (or a hand-written regex) would allow you to combine the two regular expressions:
use Regexp::Common qw/number/;
my $row = "a,b,c,d,15";
if ( $row=~s/,($RE{num}{real})$// ) {
print "matched <$1>\n";
}
print "row is now <$row>\n";
__END__
matched <15>
row is now <a,b,c,d>
- If this is a CSV file, consider using Text::CSV (also install Text::CSV_XS for speed)
Update: Added s///r to the table and added a few more doc links. A few other edits and updates. 2019-02-16: Added "Return Value on Failure" column to table, and a few other small updates. 2019-08-17: Updated the link to "Truth and Falsehood".
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