in reply to disregard spaces while matching ?

This too will work, just a minor variation of the above. 

if( $test_string =~ /hello(\s+)world/ig )
{
  print "FOUND IT!";
}

else
{
  print "DIDNT FIND IT!";
}

[download]

The "i" will ignore case, and the "g" will allow it to match more than once, or globally.

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Re^2: disregard spaces while matching ?
by hmerrill (Friar) on Aug 05, 2004 at 12:05 UTC
    No need to surround the \s+ with parenthesis. The only reason to use parenthesis is if you want to "capture" that part of the match. Using your example: 
      if( $test_string =~ /hello(\s+)world/ig ) {
     $spaces_between = $1; ### $1 comes from matching the
                           ### expression in parenthesis
     $ct_spaces_between = length $spaces_between;
     print "FOUND IT!  The number of spaces between 'hello' and 'world
+' was $ct_spaces_between\n";
  }

    [download]
    You should be able to use just /hello\s+world/ as your regular expression.

    HTH.

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