In that case, 
$sql =~ s/(?<=select)\s*[^,]*?\s+as//gi ;
$sql =~ s/(?<=,)\s*[^,]*?\s+as//gi ;

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Looks like the problem was that (?:) is non-capturing grouping. It stills eats up the characters. What you need is lookbehind (?<=).

I also tried 

$sql =~ s/(?<=select|,)\s*[^,]*?\s+as//gi ;

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But the interpreter refused and said 
Variable length lookbehind not implemented in regex

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So, it looks like you have to have two regexes if you do not want to use $1.

Oguz

---------------------------------
life is ... $mutation = sub { $_[0] =~ s/(.)/rand()<0.1?1-$1:$1/ge };

In reply to Re^3: regex needed to remove parts of SQL by mayaTheCat
in thread regex needed to remove parts of SQL by jeanluca

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