I am trying to parse something that looks like a function call, and extract the function name, and the arguments.

Attempting to do this with a single regex gets me either the first, or last arg - I cant seem to handle a variable (can be zero) number of arguments.

Given: 

 $cmd=q|&COMPAREEQUAL(First-param.one, Second.param,Third-param)|;

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I am trying to extract:

Here is what I have tried: 

perl -e '$cmd=q|&COMPAREEQUAL(First-param.one, Second.param,Third-para
+m)|;
print qq|$_;\n| for
      $cmd=~/.(\w+)(?:[\s\(,]+([^\s,!@#\$%&\*]*))*/'

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Including the trailing asterisk gives me the last param. Excluding it gives me the first.

It is getting increasingly obvious that I am not approaching this regex correctly. Please enlighten. Thanks.

The call can have zero arguments. Arguments can contain pretty much anything, other than close-paren , white-space or comma or some nasty side-effect-inducing chars. They are not quoted.

Update 1: This regex gives better results (3 args found), but , for some reason, it does not match the "." in the second.param. Most likely it is because it is using the (\w+) to match the second param. I'm confused about how to repeat only the second part of the regex - the attempt with the non-capturing paren does not seem to repeat that group. 

 $cmd=~/.(\w+)(?:[\s(,]+([^\s,!\()]*))/g

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             I hope life isn't a big joke, because I don't get it.
                   -SNL

In reply to regex extraction for variable number of args by NetWallah

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