Obviously, m/MI-6/x (they want to match "MI-6", not "m/MI-6/x"). How could that be corrected for?
By first answering the question: "how will you know they entered a piece of Perl code instead of simply the regular expression?"

Most of programming is asking yourself how you know something. The code to teach the machine to know it falls out from that.

So, how would you know whether they entered a piece of Perl code instead of a regex? If you decide arbitrarily that it's when something begins "m slash", then there's your solution: use a regex to extract the piece. Maybe they select another form element that says "I'm entering a regex instead of a piece of Perl code", or something. But an arbitrary string is neither a regex nor a piece of Perl code (maybe they wanted to match something that begins with m slash).

Of course, the simplest way to correct for it is with humanware instead of DWIM-ware. Put a big message by the input box that says "enter a regex, not a piece of Perl code!". Sometimes, the simplest solutions are the best.

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker

In reply to RE: RE: Re: Converting RegExs. by merlyn
in thread Converting RegExs. by dcorbin

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