Hello All, I'm trying to simplify a reg. ex. to extract currencies from HTML files. Here is a snippet of the HTML that wraps the currency and f/x rate: 
<TR BGCOLOR="#F0F0DF">
        <TD ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP CLASS="mrktdata1"><FONT FACE="arial,
+helvetica" SIZE="-1" COLOR="#000000">Falkland Island Pound (*FKP)</FO
+NT></TD>
        <TD ALIGN=RIGHT VALIGN=TOP CLASS="mrktdata1"><FONT FACE="arial
+,helvetica" SIZE="-1" COLOR="#000000">1.4409 </FONT></TD>
</TR></TR>

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Here's the expression I'm currently using to parse out the currencies: 
while ($content =~ /(\**\s?\w+\.?\s+\S*\.?\s*\w*\.?\/?\s*\w*\.?\/?\s*\
+w*\.?\/?\s*\(\*?[A-Z]{2,4}\))/g){
print RAW "$1\n";

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Some sample output: 
Falkland Island Pound (*FKP)
South African Rand/fin (ZAR)

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It works, but as you can see my expression is rather cumbersome. Any ideas on how I can somehow group things and/or condense or simplify it? I've tried using variations of \S to catch instances of odd things like '&' or '/', but that really slows it down. Is there someway I can group all the repeating sections? I've attempted a couple grouping schemes and tried putting it into a class, but without much success. I'm also trying to keep it somewhat generic and flexible to catch name changes, etc.

Finally, is there a nice way I can also read in the rate (1.4409 in the sample) on the same pass through the file? Thanks.

In reply to simplifying an expression by Anonymous Monk

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