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

Hey monks. Quick question. When in slurp mode, is there anyway to match a newline character other than "\n" ? At the moment I don't need to, but probably will at one point.

Example: 
local $/ = undef;
my $names = <DATA>;

$names =~ /First: (\w+)\nSecond: (\w+)\nThird: (\w+)/;
my ( $first, $second, $third ) = ( $1, $2, $3 );
print "$first, $second, $third\n";

__DATA__
First: Bob
Second: Me
Third: You

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The above works, but if I try to replace "\n" in the regex with something else which I would assume would work (namely * or .+) I of course get complaints. Yes, I know that newline characters are special, but if you can't recognize them with a wildcard, isn't slurp mode kinda pointless? The data I'm slurping now is very pretty and well layed out, but what if I was slurping a news article or something?

I'm sure I'm missing something important, so please -- feel free to verbally pound me now.

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: slurping (matching \n)
by BrowserUk (Patriarch) on Apr 18, 2005 at 01:15 UTC

    Take a look at the /s modifier. It allows . to also match \n.

    Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.
    Lingua non convalesco, consenesco et abolesco.
    Rule 1 has a caveat! -- Who broke the cabal?
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[d/l]
      And that'd be what I was missing. :) Thanks
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Re: slurping (matching \n)
by bart (Canon) on Apr 18, 2005 at 04:20 UTC
    Also note that /\s/ always matches a newline, too. You don't need /s for that.
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[d/l]
      As do \C, \D, \W, and \X.
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Re: slurping (matching \n)
by maa (Pilgrim) on Apr 18, 2005 at 07:44 UTC

    Bear in mind that you might get bitten in longer programs if you don't actually localise your local lexically. 

    {
    local $/ = undef;
    my $names = <DATA>;
}
#$/ is back to our original record separator 
#(which you can use in the regexp if you want) e.g. 
if ( $names =~ m|First: (\w+)$/Second: (\w+)$/Third: (\w+)|s ) { 
    ....
}

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