If you want to find out whether parenthesis are balanced in a string, you do not need a complicated regexp. In fact, you could even do it without a regexp at all, but let me present you a solution with a simple regexp: 
sub is_balanced {
    my $_ = shift;
    my $c = 0;

    while (/([()])/g) {
        if ($1 eq '(') {$c++; next}
        return if --$c < 0;
    }

    $c == 0;
}

[download]
The trick is to keep a counter. Increase the counter by 1 each time you see a '(', decrement the counter by 1 each time you see a ')'. If the counter ever becomes less than 0, or if the counter isn't 0 when reaching the end of the string, the parens aren't balanced. Otherwise, they are.

In reply to Re^4: IT's not counting... by JavaFan
in thread IT's not counting... by Dwood

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.