in reply to Help with Regular Expression matching

So you want to match some text which might be surrounded by brackets?

Just match against "<?" and ">?" for the bracket zero or more times.

($match) = $string =~ /<?(ab)>?/;

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Steve
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steve.org.uk

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Re: Re: Help with Regular Expression matching
by Anonymous Monk on Feb 18, 2004 at 10:20 UTC
    This is a good suggestion, but I need to match /ab/ only when it surrounded or not surrounded by brackets, not where there is a bracket on only one side (as the <? and >? approach would allow).
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        This will capture <ab> into $1 and ab into $2 - This means that $match will not capture ab.
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        As our friend notes, you mean: 

        my ($match) = $string =~ /(<ab>|ab)/;

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        Update: Ok, I didn't read the spec carefully enough, I think this will do it: 
        my ($match) = $string =~ /(?!<ab[^>]|[^<]ab>)<?(ab)>?/

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        But I'd probably split it into two regexes.

        I'm talking twaddle, anyone else want a go?


        davis
        It's not easy to juggle a pregnant wife and a troubled child, but somehow I managed to fit in eight hours of TV a day.
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