in reply to a regular expression question

Be less greedy: 
s/\(.?,\s*bob\s*,.?\)//g;

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Re^2: a regular expression question
by brassbin (Novice) on Dec 18, 2012 at 15:26 UTC

    i know the netgroup file i'm processing probably doesn't have 3 spaces before the first comma, what if it does?

    i thought regular expression matches the short possible pattern, not the longest, am i wrong?

[reply]

      brassbin:

      As toolic mentioned, the .* construct is greedy and tries to get the longest match. If you turn it into .*?, it then looks for the shortest match. If you read the link he provided, you could verify that yourself.

      ...roboticus

      When your only tool is a hammer, all problems look like your thumb.

[reply]
        Thank you toolic, roboticus!
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        i haven't figured out all the rules yet of posting, but i meant to say thank you for your help

[reply]

        i don't know why a line that contains the words

        thank you

        doesn't show up

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