Hi,

On the following code, could someone explain me, why in the first match, the \1 reference, did not block the double quote from being considered part of $2 ? 

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;

my $line;

print "\n";

$line = '<a href="http://www.mysite.com/" target="_blank">';
$line =~ /\shref=(["'])?([^\s\>\1]+)/; # FIRT MATCH
if (defined $1) {print "\$1= $1\n";}
else {print "1) not defined\n";}
if (defined $2) {print "\$2= $2\n";}
else {print "2) not defined\n";}
    
print "\n"; 

$line =~ /\shref=(["'])?([^\s\>"']+)/; # SECOND MATCH
if (defined $1) {print "\$1= $1\n";}
else {print "1) not defined\n";}
if (defined $2) {print "\$2= $2\n";}
else {print "2) not defined\n";}

[download]

==Program Output
$1= "
$2= http://www.mysite.com/"

$1= "
$2= http://www.mysite.com/

In reply to Backreferences by OCTweak

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