dear monks, I have a small question concerning with database fields and regex. As far I understood in a flat file (e.g. a .txt file) the end of a line is marked by \n (at least on UNIX-like systems). Well, how strings are terminated in database field?
For instace, if a field is filled by a string like this "*E2@x*PAP" I can match the pattern E2 (between * and @x) but how can I match the pattern PAP (between * and ...)? If I use "find everything between * and \n" it doesn't work. Moreover I have thousand of these pattern (character sequences to be matched), thus I suppose I need expressions like (.*?) or stuf like that.
p.s. I use MySQL (I don't know if it is relevant!)

In reply to regex and database fields by frasco

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.