Indeed, thanks AnomalousMonk, that was poor wording on my part. I should have added an "in this case" or something similar at the end since I meant that statement to apply to the specific alternatives being checked for a match against the specific string given, not a general statement to say "the order of such alternatives never matters". I do go on to explain it checks the leftmost alternative first.

For some reason I originally thought it would drag the first (leftmost) alternative through the entire string before trying the second alternative and so on. Probably a silly thing to have ever thought, especially when considering groups of alternatives contained within more complicated regular expressions.

I love it when things get difficult; after all, difficult pays the mortgage. - Dr. Keith Whites
I hate it when things get difficult, so I'll just sell my house and rent cheap instead. - perldigious

In reply to Re^3: Is RegEx in Perl not NFA anymore? by perldigious
in thread Is RegEx in Perl not NFA anymore? by redbull2012

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