#!/usr/bin/perl -l 
my $yo = 'C:/as/d/f/e/r/g/a/d/f/g/';
use File::Spec;
print for File::Spec->splitpath($yo);
warn $yo;
print for File::Spec->splitdir($yo);
die $yo;
__END__
C:
/as/d/f/e/r/g/a/d/f/g/

C:/as/d/f/e/r/g/a/d/f/g/ at - line 5.
C:
as
d
f
e
r
g
a
d
f
g

C:/as/d/f/e/r/g/a/d/f/g/ at - line 7.
[download]

use YAPE::Regex::Explain;
die YAPE::Regex::Explain->new(qr/^(\w):\\(.+)\\?/)->explain;
__END__
The regular expression:

(?-imsx:^(\w):\\(.+)\\?)

matches as follows:

NODE                     EXPLANATION
----------------------------------------------------------------------
(?-imsx:                 group, but do not capture (case-sensitive)
                         (with ^ and $ matching normally) (with . not
                         matching \n) (matching whitespace and #
                         normally):
----------------------------------------------------------------------
  ^                        the beginning of the string
----------------------------------------------------------------------
  (                        group and capture to \1:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
    \w                       word characters (a-z, A-Z, 0-9, _)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
  )                        end of \1
----------------------------------------------------------------------
  :                        ':'
----------------------------------------------------------------------
  \\                       '\'
----------------------------------------------------------------------
  (                        group and capture to \2:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
    .+                       any character except \n (1 or more times
                             (matching the most amount possible))
----------------------------------------------------------------------
  )                        end of \2
----------------------------------------------------------------------
  \\?                      '\' (optional (matching the most amount
                           possible))
----------------------------------------------------------------------
)                        end of grouping
----------------------------------------------------------------------
[download]

perl -le"print for split m{[:\\/]+}, shift, 3" C:\y\o\d\a
C
y
o\d\a
[download]

MJD says "you can't just make shit up and expect the computer to know what you mean, retardo!"

I run a Win32 PPM repository for perl 5.6.x and 5.8.x -- I take requests (README).

** The third rule of perl club is a statement of fact: pod is sexy.

WOW, the power of Perl "...it helps if you know what you are doing", I didn't know that there things like YAPE::Regex::Explain; to explain it all....Thanks.

Thanks PodMaster.... Oh forget Regex, for what I need, File::Spec is really what I should use. This is magic.

\\? '\' (optional (matching the most amount possible))

Is that correct? I always understood '?' to mean exactly 0 or 1 occurances, '*' or '+' would be the most possible.

--
Barbie | Birmingham Perl Mongers | http://birmingham.pm.org/

The question to ask yourself is: Is it incorrect? The answer is no.

perlre says "? Match 1 or 0 times", which means optional (like YAPE::Regex::Explain says).

Now, the extra "(matching the most amount possible)" comment may seem a bit misleading, but it's not wrong. Consider the re-pattern f?. It means match "f" optionally. Since "f" is fixed with, it'll always match the most amount possible. This may seem a bit silly, and may or may not be an unintended sideeffect of how YAPE::Regex::Explain works, but it's perfectly fine by me (if it is unintended, I don't think it's worth a workaround, if it's not, there is no issue).

MJD says "you can't just make shit up and expect the computer to know what you mean, retardo!"

I run a Win32 PPM repository for perl 5.6.x and 5.8.x -- I take requests (README).

** The third rule of perl club is a statement of fact: pod is sexy.

Your using a greedy regex '\\.+\\', which will grab as much as it can. You can either use a nongreedy version

$path =~ /^(\w):\\(.+?)\\?/;
[download]

Or better, match anything except the terminator char (\).

$path =~ /^(\w):\\([^\\]+)\\?/;
[download]

That said, you'd almost certainly be better of using the File::Spec module that is a part of the core for this sort of thing.

Thanks Sir,

the $path =~ /^(\w):\\(^\\+)\\?/ worked for me, but what I don't understand how does it get the $2 value? There is no “.” or “\w” in the second parenthesis. Oh well, as long as it works…

I think you were talking about this one:

$path =~ /^(\w):\\([^\\]+)\\?/;
[download]

In this one [\\] would match just backslashes, but with the ^, [^\\], matches all characters Except backslashes, and because of the +, it matches as much as possible up to the 1st backslash. $2 is populates, because the character class (ie. [^\\]) is in parenthesis, which happens to be the second set of them, so therefore is stored in $2

You should take a look at File::Spec. What you show con be done with File::Spec->splitpath and File::Spec->splitdir. That approach will make your code more portable, and the parsing more accurate.

After Compline,
Zaxo

Thanks Zaxo,

File::Spec,....I need to lean this one too,...There is no end to Perl libraries,..cheers?

You may want to test the input "\\someserverhere\c$\foo\bar" as well as it is a valid path.

-Waswas

Another core module that can be used for this purpose is: File::Basename.

However, File::Spec looks a lot more powerful!

Cheers

use strict;

my $path = shift;
my($drive, $top) = ( split('\', $path) )[0,1];
[download]

O' this is neat, I did think about split and splice to start off with, but then I went the Regex way!. Thanks brethren.

I have found many Regex and pattern matching related tutorials on this site. Which all made a nice read over the very warm weekend.Anyway...

God blesses.