Hello shankonit,

If you have access to the Camel Book (4th Edition, 2012), you should look at Chapter 5, “Pattern Matching,” especially the section “The Little Engine That /Could(n’t)?/” (pages 241–6). Rule 5 covers the behaviour of quantifiers; the final two paragraphs nicely explain the difference between greedy and non-greedy matching in terms of “backward” vs. “forward” backtracking.

Note for pedants: Messrs Christiansen, d foy, Wall, and Orwant use the term frugal as a synonym for non-greedy. :-)

Hope that helps,

Athanasius <°(((>< contra mundum Iustus alius egestas vitae, eros Piratica,

In reply to Re: What are greedy and lazy matching in Perl? by Athanasius
in thread What is greedy and lazy Matching in perl by shankonit

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