matching in a line

splitOnce has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hi guys , how do you ignore the rest of line once you find what you looking for in my example :

Here:\: => M:\p_sold-cr_q00457655_EFLT
[download]

I want to only get the first word in this line , in this case it is Here and ignore the rest : this seems to work but , I am sure there is a cleaner way :

 

$word =~ s/\:\\\:\s+\=\>\s+\w+\:\w*\\\w*//;
[download]

thanks

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Re: matching in a line by fireartist (Chaplain) on Aug 01, 2002 at 20:04 UTC
`if ( $word =~ /^([a-zA-Z]+)/ ) { $word = $1; }` [download] the `^` matches the start of the string the `()` assigns whatever it matches between them to `$1` update the above matches any of `[a-zA-Z]` at the start of the string If you want to match any character before the first `:` then do `if ( $word =~ /^([^:]+)/ ) { $word = $1; }` [download] the `[^:]` means match anything except a `:`	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: matching in a line (without destruction) by BigLug (Chaplain) on Aug 02, 2002 at 02:38 UTC
Your suggestion, and others, destroy the initial value. This might not matter, but if you want to keep your initial value use: `($firstword) = $word =~ /^(.*?):/;` [download] This leaves $word eq 'Here:\: => M:\p_sold-cr_q00457655_EFLT' and sets $firstword eq 'Here';	[reply] [d/l]
Re: matching in a line by Jaap (Curate) on Aug 01, 2002 at 19:59 UTC
How about $word =~ s/\:.*$//;	[reply]