P:\test>517393-3 -N=1 got
...I've <<got>> a
question that's <<got>> me...


P:\test>517393-3 -N=3 got
...me, and I've <<got>> a
question that's <<got>> me stumped. Here's...


P:\test>517393-3 -N=5 got
...spot for me, and I've <<got>> a
question that's <<got>> me stumped. Here's the problem...


P:\test>517393-3 -N=3 and
...spot for me, <<and>> I've got a...

...capture the word <<and>> X number of words before <<and>> after it
while...

...than one term <<and>> they overlap, the...


P:\test>517393-3 -N=3 the
...me stumped. Here's <<the>> problem I'm trying...

...do is capture <<the>> word and X...

...it
while tagging <<the>> matching word in <<the>> captured text. My...

...and they overlap, <<the>> nth term will...

...a regex even <<the>> best
way to...


P:\test>517393-3 -N=3 of
...somwhat large articles <<of>> text (returned from...

...and X number <<of>> words before and...


P:\test>517393-3 -N=10 of
...problem I'm trying to solve.
I have somwhat large articles <<of>> text (returned from a search), what I'd
like to do...

...like to do is capture the word and X number <<of>> words before and after it
while tagging the matching word...

##</code><code>##

#! perl -slw
use strict;

our $N ||= 3;

my $word = $ARGV[0] or die "No search term";

my $text = do{ local $/; <DATA> };

my $re_word = qr[
    (?<=\s)
    $word
    [[:punct:]]*
    (?=\s)
]x;

$text =~ s[
    (
        (?: \S+ \s+ ){0,$N}
        $re_word
        (?: .{0,60} $re_word )?
        (?= ( (?: \s+ \S+ ){0,$N} )  )
    )
][
    my $extract = "...$1$2...";
    $extract =~ s[ ( \s ) ( $word ) ( [[:punct:]]*\s ) ][$1<<$2>>$3]gx;
    print $extract, $/;
]gsex;

__END__
Regular expressions have always been a weak spot for me, and I've got a
question that's got me stumped. Here's the problem I'm trying to solve.
I have somwhat large articles of text (returned from a search), what I'd
like to do is capture the word and X number of words before and after it
while tagging the matching word in the captured text. My inital thought
was to try something like this. The problem I have is that if there is
more than one term and they overlap, the nth term will not be annotated.
So my next thought is lookahead/lookbehind, but they don't capture.
Is there a way to do this with a single regex? Is a regex even the best
way to do this? Thanks, -Lee