Well, you regex is not working, at least not as I'd expect it to work - apart from the fact that the 'Class\n====\n' header is missing. The array @devices gets just the first entry line ('graphics 0 ...'). The reason for this is that the /g modifier on the regex is not matching multiple times because the header is there only once.

So do it in two steps like this: 

#!/usr/bin/perl

$_ = do {local $/; <DATA>};

s/(Class.+\n=+\n)//;
$header = $1;

@devices = m/(^\w.+\n(?:\s+.+\n)*)/mg;

__DATA__
Class Foo
=========
graphics   0  1          graph3      CLAIMED     INTERFACE    Graphics
disk       0  2/0/1.0.0  sdisk       CLAIMED     DEVICE       HP      
+C2247M1
                        /dev/dsk/c0t0d0   /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0
ctl        0  2/0/1.7.0  sctl        CLAIMED     DEVICE       Initiato
+r
                        /dev/rscsi/c0t7d0

[download]
as far as I can tell this is not a problem with greedy matching. You just expected the /g modifier to dwim more than it does.

-- Hofmator

In reply to Re: A query on greedy regexps by Hofmator
in thread A query on greedy regexps by sch

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