Brethern, Given a string with:
* an optional dot.separated number at front
* a repeated set of n As and m Bs (n > 0, m >= 0), comma separated
I want to pull off, in a single list, the number, then each of the A and B fields. I.e., 
  1.2.3AAABB,AAB,AA,AAABBB
should give
  qw(1.2.3 AAA BB AA B AA AAA BBB)

  AABB,AAAB,ABBB
should give 
  qw(AA BB AAA B A BBB)

[download]
I've been doing it with a three step process - pull off the numbers, pull off the A and B's, clean up the nulls 
use strict;
sub chip{
    local($_)=@_;
    if(/^(\d+ (?: \.\d+)* )? (.+) /x){
    my($front) = $1;
    if(my(@rest) = $2 =~ /(A+) (B*) ,? /gx){
        unshift(@rest, $front);
        grep {$_} @rest}}}

[download]
(I've omitted the extra code that does the error-checking etc.) I want to do a regular match on the numbers, then a greedy match on the rest. I don't think what I did is particularly clear or clean. Is there a way to do this in a single, comprehensible regex, without using something like grep to clean up the null strings?

throop

In reply to g matching after a single regular match by throop

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