Hi all. I've got a problem here, and I am not at all sure how I should be approaching it.

What I have is a whole load of defined formats for specific data types. For example:

^\d{2}.\d{2}.\d{2}$      date
^\d{2}.\d{2}.\d{4}$      date
^[A-Z]{2}\d{9}[A-Z]{2}$  Royal Mail Track & Trace code
^\d{16}$                 visa card
^\d{13}$                 EAN-13 barcode
...

[download]

What I want to do is to pass a string into a subroutine, where the string is compared to the definition list, and to return a value indicating what the string is, or represents. Obviously, the list above is very simplistic, as not every 13 digit number will be a valid barcode -- so there will be additional checks performed if it matches, so that it will also recognise and differentiate between subtypes (ISBN numbers, for example).

What I would like to know is how I should be doing this whilst ensuring that it is reasonably fast and efficient. Help would be very much appreciated.

In reply to Pattern Identification by WhiteTraveller

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