[regex] matching Perl quoted strings

Jaap has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: [regex] matching Perl quoted strings by Abigail-II (Bishop) on Mar 16, 2004 at 12:38 UTC
It ain't simple. Your 'dumb' way isn't correct. Consider that the following are valid Perl strings too: `q [Jon [Maddog] Orwant]; q "Jon \"Maddog\" Orwant";` [download] Your regex doesn't match any of them correctly. You might be best off using Text::Balanced. Abigail	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Re: [regex] matching Perl quoted strings by Jaap (Curate) on Mar 16, 2004 at 15:52 UTC
Hmmmzzz good point. The problem is that i really want to do it with a single regex because of the current flow of the program.	[reply]
Re: Re: Re: [regex] matching Perl quoted strings by davido (Cardinal) on Mar 16, 2004 at 16:27 UTC
The problem is that I really want to do it with a single regex because of the current flow of the program. Then rework the current flow of the program. A single regex is not the tool you need. Text::Balanced is. Have you read the docs for Text::Balanced yet? It may be that you don't have to redesign your program all that much to use it. Perhaps you could maintain the current flow if you wrap the dirty-work done by Text::Balanced in a subroutine. Dave	[reply]
Re: [regex] matching Perl quoted strings by Abigail-II (Bishop) on Mar 16, 2004 at 16:49 UTC
Well, I'm not going to claim it's impossible to do with a regexp. It certainly is. But I don't have time to work out the details right now, and, considering there's a module doing what you want to do, I don't have any initiative to spend time on it. Abigail	[reply]
Re: [regex] matching Perl quoted strings by chip (Curate) on Mar 16, 2004 at 15:09 UTC
I recommend Text::Balanced. "If it's good enough for Damnian, it's likely to kill you. But it'll be fun." -- Chip Salzenberg, Free-Floating Agent of Chaos	[reply]
Re: [regex] matching Perl quoted strings by zby (Vicar) on Mar 16, 2004 at 12:41 UTC
The Regexp::Common::balanced module should be applicable here. I've never used it so I can't comment on it's quality. Update: Or rather I can comment on its quality seeing that the author of that piece of sofware is Damian Conway.	[reply]
Re: regex] matching Perl quoted strings by Abigail-II (Bishop) on Mar 16, 2004 at 13:00 UTC
The Regexp::Common::balanced module should be applicable here. Uhm, no. Perl allows delimiters to be escaped, while Regexp::Common::balanced doesn't consider escapes. (But as of now, it's on the TODO list). Abigail	[reply]
Re: [regex] matching Perl quoted strings by dawn (Novice) on Mar 16, 2004 at 15:03 UTC
Instead of the .? which will take up more processing, you could use negated characters e.g. `/(\[[^]]\] \| {[^}]} \| \([^)]\) \| <[^>]*>)/`	[reply] [d/l]