my $string = "PM123456789some more text";

my($chars, $nums, $rest) = $string =~ m{
  ^               # start of the string
  ( [a-z]{2} )    # capture 2 chars
  ( \d{9} )       # capture 9 digits
  ( .* )          # capture the rest
  \z              # end of the string
}ix;

print "chars: $chars", $/,
      "nums:  $nums",  $/,
      "rest:  $rest",  $/;

__output__

chars: PM
nums:  123456789
rest:  some more text
[download]

_________
broquaint

use strict;
my $string="AB123456789this_code_is_untested";
my $match=substr $string, 0, 11;
[download]

$string=~/^([a-zA-Z]{2}\d{9}).*/;
print $1;
[download]

CU
Robartes-

Hi again,
The 2 chars and 9 digits code I got the last time has taken on a life of it's own. It now seems that there is not only one possible instance of the substring in a string, but possible more. The code I'm using to locate the sunstring is the following:



($number) = $line =~ m{ ( [A-Z]{2}\d{9} ) }ix;
[download]


The $line can now contain more substings. How do I ensure that the reg.xp. get's all the instances?. I cannot do a split because the data is entered by mortal users who tend to have no sense of order. So a string could look like:

"So I found SP236645744 in reference ED331234576, but not
in IJ558897567."

Hope you Gurus can help,
Rune

In that case, you would use a slightly modified version of the regexp:

use strict;
my $string="this_PM123456789_code_is_untested";
$string=~/([a-zA-Z]{2}\d{9})/;
print $1;
[download]

This will find the first occurence of your string.

CU
Robartes-

almost the same as above:

my($chars_nums) = $string =~ m{
  ( [a-z]{2}\d{9} )   # capture 2 chars + 9 digits
}ix;
[download]

Hi again, Thanks anyway, but I found a working solution my self. Like this:



(@instances) = $line =~ m/[A-Z]{2}\d{11}/g;

foreach $elem (@instances)
   {
    print $elem . ",";
   }
[download]


It gives me every occurance of the substring in the string.
BR,
Rune