Hi All, So I'm using the excellent CPAN module Text::Balance, which is the coolest and most useful module ever. Anyway, I'm using it to parse out balanced blocks of code, such that

{foo is awesome and so is {bar}}
[download]

is a match (since the braces are balanced) but

{foo is not {balanced}
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will not. Pretty elementary, yes? OK, so here's my problem. I'm using this module in order to convert some code written in Curl into XML. Curl uses || to denote comments, like this:

{center foo}
||this is comment
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my problem is that the comment often contains braces, and I of course don't want to end up with a situation where

|| an open brace looks like this {
{beginning of a block
{some function}
end of a block}
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does not match. This results in everything after an extra { in comment being unmatched to the end of the input, since a matching } won't be found unless it's a random } in another comment. So my current (not so) brilliant thinking is that I will use a regex like this:

$text =~ s/\|\|(.*?)\n/\<\!\-\-$1\-\-\>\n/g; #turn line comment form i
+nto XML comment form
$text =~ s/<\!\-\-(.*?)\}(.*?)\-\->/<\!\-\-$1 endbrace $2\-\->/gxs; #e
+scape the end braces in comment so they needn't be balanced
$text =~ s/<\!\-\-(.*?)\{(.*?)\-\->/<\!\-\-$1 openbrace $2\-\->/gxs; #
+ditto for open braces
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So far so good, right? OK, so I run these regexes, then run the Text::Balanced routine, then after that is done I search for "endbrace" and "openbrace" and replace them appropriately. So this makes sense in my head, but it does not seem to work in actuality. I was hoping that, for example,

||{paragraph The union of zero or more  {glossary citation="type", typ
+es }
|| may be denoted using  {ONE-OF }.  For example, the
|| {glossary type expression }  {ctext  {one-of int float } }  {glossa
+ry
|| citation="evaluate", evaluates } to a non- {glossary
|| representational type } that can be used to  {glossary declare } a 
+ {glossary
|| variable } that can hold either an  {INT } or a  {FLOAT }. }
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Would simply become the same block of code with <!-- in place of || and a --> at the end of each line. Actually, the change of comment indicators seems fine, but identifying each brace seems to be screwing up. Running the above code through my program I get

<!-- { paragraph The union of zero or more  <glossary citation="type",
+ types  } -->
<!-- may be denoted using   { ONE-OF  } .  For example, the-->
<!--  { glossary type expression  }   <ctext>  <one-of> int float </on
+e-of> </ctext>  <glossary-->>
<!-- citation="evaluate", evaluates  }  to a non-  { glossary-->
<!-- representational type  }  that can be used to   { glossary declar
+e </glossary--> a  <glossary-->>
<!-- variable  }  that can hold either an   { INT </glossary--> or a  
+<FLOAT> </FLOAT>. > -->
[download]

The <> instead of {} is due to the Text::Balanced recognizing balanced braces, which indicates that my regexes are not working in all occurences. Specifically, they seem to match once per line of comment. Am I making some dumb mistake in my regexes? Is there a better way to get Text::Balanced to ignore braces in ||comment? Any suggestions/pointers much appreciated. Thanks!

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