I've got a large database of parts that I need to search. I break all the records into words using :

while ( $rec =~ /\b\w+\b/g ) { $word = $&; }

That works well except I don't want it to define a word break as a slash ("/"). This is because a lot of words are notations like: "a/c", "4-5/16", etc. What I'd like to do is redefine what "\b" is. I know that is not possible, but I'm trying to figure out a technique that would let be create something like the "\b" asserion only something I could define. For example, I want to break a word at space, comma, periord, but not slash.

Also, what characters does the "\b" assertion encompass? Is it any character that is not alpha, digit or underscore?

In reply to Re-define Word Boundary? by JimJ

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