Regex help

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

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Regex help by strider corinth (Friar) on Nov 16, 2002 at 13:59 UTC
You've got it almost right, from what I can see. Your post looks a little strange (you'll notice your brackets are missing) because PerlMonks uses brackets to make linking easier in posts (anything in brackets links to the node named whatever's within the brackets). In the future, you'll probably want to put <code> tags around any code you post. From what I can see, your regexp looks like this: `/^[A-Za-z0-9]/` There's only one small error- the ^ is outside of the brackets. A caret outside of brackets means 'match this regexp at the beginning of a string'. If you move it inside: `/[^A-Za-z0-0]/` you should find that it does what you want it to. Incidentally, there are two shortcuts you might be interested in. You can use the escape sequence "\w" to mean "match all alphanumeric characters plus '_'", and "\W" to mean "match everything but \w". So if it's ok for you to add "_" to the class of characters that are ok to find, the whole thing can be shortened to `/\W/`. A good place to look for more information on this is the perlre man page. Happy Perling! -- Love justice; desire mercy.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Regex help by mikeirw (Pilgrim) on Nov 16, 2002 at 13:54 UTC
What you want is: `=~ /[^A-Za-z0-9]/` [download] Which could also be written as: `=~ /\W/` [download] ...which would also include the underscore in addition to the alphanumeric characters. See perlre for more info.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Regex help by jreades (Friar) on Nov 16, 2002 at 13:58 UTC
If you want anything that isn't a digit or a leter (or an underscore), then you might consider using: \W `while ($in =~ /\W/) { # do something }` [download] Or: `while ($in !~ /\w/) { ... }` [download] Otherwise: `while ($in =~ /[^a-zA-Z0-9]/) { # do something }` [download] Or: `while ($in !~ /[a-zA-Z0-9]/) { ... }` [download] There's not much to chose between =~ and !~, but I generally like the emphasis of saying "as long as it's not one of these things..."	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Re: Regex help by fruiture (Curate) on Nov 17, 2002 at 12:00 UTC
Carefull with logic! `$in =~ /\W/ # is NOT the same as $in !~ /\w/` [download] -- http://fruiture.de	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Regex help by Anonymous Monk on Nov 16, 2002 at 22:02 UTC
=~ /[^A-Za-z0-9]/ The carrot should be inside the brackets not outside. When it's outside the brackets perl tries to find A-Za-z0-9 in the beginning of words. If it's in the brackets it tells perl to find ANY characters besides the ones in the brackets. Fixed square brackets - dvergin 2002-11-16	[reply]
Re: Regex help by Anonymous Monk on Nov 18, 2002 at 09:08 UTC
the carret "^" must be within bracket angles: `/[^A-Za-z0-9]/` .... for single character `/[^A-Za-z0-9]+/` .... for multiple characters --- PS: your example matched single character atd begin of line	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Regex help by Ananda (Pilgrim) on Nov 18, 2002 at 11:04 UTC
Hello Angel, From the query you have posted i observe the following. The function is tripping because the ^(caret) is outside the brackets([]) They need to be inside. Using the ć for testing is perfectly ok the regex performs perfectly, once the caret is placed within the brackets. my $in = "ć"; if ($in !~ /\w/) {print "contains non alpha numeric characters!!"; } else {print 'its all OK (_)';} This should clarify your doubts. Cheers!!! Anandatirtha	[reply]