in reply to Re: In place replace, ignoring between quotes
in thread In place replace, ignoring between quotes

(continuing Re^2: In place replace, ignoring between quotes (one regex))

this should handle single and double quotes and escaping

DB<145> p $s3=q{ "no" yo \\' yo ' no \\\\\\' no ' yo } "no" yo \' yo ' no \\\' no ' yo DB<146> $_=$s3; s/ ( \\. | ' (?: \\.|[^'] )* ' | " (?: \\.|[^"] )* +" ) | o / $1 or 'O' /xge ; => 6 DB<147> p $_ "no" yO \' yO ' no \\\' no ' yO

If escapes outside of quotes should be ignored depends on the use-case, otherwise just skip the first or-case.

of course both quote-cases can be joined:

DB<148> $_=$s3; s/ ( \\. | (['"]) (?: \\.|[^\2] )* \2 ) | o / $1 o +r 'O' /xge ; => 6 DB<149> p $_ "no" yO \' yO ' no \\\' no ' yO

I think it's a good example to show how the regex engine does backtracking! =)

update

maybe easier to reuse with non-greedy quantifier

DB<110> $_=$s3; s/ ( \\. | (['"]) (?: \\.|. )*? \2 ) | o / $1 or ' +O' /xge ; print ; () "no'" yO \' yO ' no \\\' no ' yO

Cheers Rolf

( addicted to the Perl Programming Language)