I am trying to get my mind around negative look behinds. This is something that I am working on but did not write.

I think that it looks for the number of spaces to remove the right txt. If I use the script as written it does NOT grab the STATE ZIPCODE section.

If I change

$addr =~ s/(?<![|\s])\s{25,}[^|]+//g;   # extra right-text
[download]

to

$addr =~ s/(?<![|\s])\s{27,}[^|]+//g;   # extra right-text
[download]

then i get the STATE and ZIPCODE

this is the example script

use strict;
use warnings;

my $addr = '|                                                         
+                          Note                                     00
+001|       FIRST LAST NAME|       ADDRESS 1                          
+                                   Interest Rate                     
+        5.450000|       CITY                         STATE ZIPCODE|



                                                                      
+  YTD Interest                             $4,442.64|
                                Total Payment Amount                  
+    $886.00|                                                         
+                           Escrow Portion                           $
+344.49|';
 
print  "address to parse :  \n $addr \n";
$addr =~ s/\|\s{25,}[^|]+//g;           # rm spaces left
$addr =~ s/(?<![|\s])\s{27,}[^|]+//g;  # extra right-text
$addr =~ s/\s*\|\s*/|/g;
$addr =~ s/\|{2,}/|/g;
$addr =~ s/\s+\|$//;
$addr =~ s/\s+/ /g;
# use up to 6 of last lines for addr
$addr = join('|', (split('\|', "||||||$addr"))[-6..-1]);
$addr =~ s/^\|+//;

print "Result addr : \n $addr \n";
[download]

Output

c:\Users\collinsc\dev>perl lookBehind.pl
Address to parse :
 |                                                                    
+               Note                                     00001|       
+FIRST LAST NAME|       ADDRESS 1
                                                          Interest Rat
+e                             5.450000|       CITY                   
+      STATE ZIPCODE|



                                                                      
+  YTD Interest                             $4,442.64|
                                Total Payment Amount                  
+    $886.00|                                                         
+                           Escrow Portion                           $
+344.49|
Result addr :
 FIRST LAST NAME|ADDRESS 1|CITY STATE ZIPCODE
[download]

Question If the spaces are outside of the negative look behind section how is this working?

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