in reply to pattern matching a limited number of times

I try to keep code out of regexes, so i won't show you that example. 
$foo =~ s/ab/cd/i for 1..5;

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Re: Re: pattern matching a limited number of times
by bob49 (Initiate) on Sep 14, 2002 at 16:52 UTC
    $foo =~ s/ab/cd/i for 1..5;

    The above seems to work very well. I'm not sure I see the advantages to the more complex phrasings below. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

    Thanks Podmaster.
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      The main problem is that it doesn't deal with overlapping regexes very well, (i.e. your regex matches parts of your replacement string).

      Suppose you have the string: 

      "The wodchuck at the zo stod on the stoop";

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      You realize that it will only make sense after replacing the first three 'o's with 'oo's 
      my $str = "The wodchuck at the zo stod on the stoop";
$str =~ s/o/oo/i for 1..3;
print "$str\n";

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      Oops, that yields: 
      The woooodchuck at the zo stod on the stoop

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      The other solutions would have produced: 
      The woodchuck at the zoo stood on the stoop

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      -Blake

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        Ok, I see Blakem... hmmmm.... I may be in the situation where the substitute will never be the same as the text substituted for..... Actually, I'm wrapping html around url's and their linked text.... I need to think about it though..... Thanks--you folks are really great.
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