John, this stuff gets a bit tricky because what I've done is write a code generator.

I don't understand why you need to localize the backref variables.

Because if the match fails on the current attempt, but it succeeded on a previous attempt, the backref variables ($1, $2, etc) will contain the values from the previous match. The following code demonstrates this:

my $string = '1234';
$string =~ /(2)/;
$string =~ /(a)/;
print $1;

[download]
Also, you're finding the first capture, not the last.

I misread your post then. Make the following change:

- for ( 1 .. $num_refs ) {
+ for ( $num_refs .. 1 ) {

[download]
Here is a way that finds the max by itself...

I didn't know about the @+ variable :)

In your new code, you are localizing the same name as you are my-ing.

Actually, I'm not. Before the eval statement, add the statement print $code;. That will show you what's going on. The HERE document is a scalar containing generated code to be evaled. That's all.

As I mentioned, my code is probably not worth the effort as I did not know about @+. :)

Update 2: Duh! Of course $num_refs .. 1 isn't going to work. Sigh.

Cheers,
Ovid

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In reply to (Ovid) Re(3): What's like $+ but not gives the ordinal? by Ovid
in thread What's like $+ but not gives the ordinal? by John M. Dlugosz

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