Just to give an example of how /x can help here, look at the code below. Let us assume that $_ contains data in the form id|name|address|city|state|postal. So:

/\A (           # $1 -- Entire string (hey, why not?)
    ([^|]+) \|  # $2 -- id
    ([^|]+) \|  # $3 -- address
    ([^|]+) \|  # $4 -- city
    ([^|]+) \|  # $5 -- state
    ([^|]+)     # $6 -- postal
)\z/x;

[download]

IMHO, it's more impressive to make smart use of \x than being able to make use of bizzare regex features.

----
I wanted to explore how Perl's closures can be manipulated, and ended up creating an object system by accident.
-- Schemer

: () { :|:& };:

Note: All code is untested, unless otherwise stated

In reply to Re^5: Capturing everything after an optional character in a regex? by hardburn
in thread Capturing everything after an optional character in a regex? by Anonymous Monk

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