Putting a ? on a quantifier that isn't variable-length is like having any color car you want, as long as it's black. There's no difference between a greedy and a non-greedy {5}.

A greedy quantifier will take as many characters as it can, and then start backtracking until whatever follows it matches. A non-greedy one will take as few characters as it can, and then take more until whatever is supposed to follow it is found.

The PerlMonk tr/// Advocate

In reply to Re: Re: RE: Quantifiers in regular expressions by Roy Johnson
in thread Quantifiers in regular expressions by root

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