in reply to nested reg ex over multiple lines

Maybe you're reading the data in wrong somehow? The following seems to do what you want, I think. (Not 100% sure if I followed you, but hope this helps.) 
use strict;
use warnings;

my $content = "";
while (<DATA>) {
    $content = $content . $_;
}

print "content: $content"; # sanity check

while ($content =~m/^(CAL.+\((\w+)\))/mg){
        print "\n1= $1";
        print "\n2= $2";
}
__DATA__

CALCON(test1)
{
  TYPE(U8)
  FEATURE(DCOM)
  NAM(stmin)
  LABEL(Min seperation time between CFs)
  MIN(0)
  MAX(127)
  UNITS(ms)  
}

CALCON(test2)
{
  TYPE(U16)
  FEATURE(DCOM)
  NAM(dcomc_sestmr_timeout)
  LABEL(DCOM Session Timer Timeout)
  MIN(0)
  MAX(65535)
  UNITS(ms)
}

[download]
This outputs: 
1= CALCON(test1)
2= test1
1= CALCON(test2)
2= test2

[download]

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^2: nested reg ex over multiple lines
by eg8rds (Acolyte) on Jun 20, 2005 at 13:30 UTC
    I have the entire file in one variable. I can get the result you have by leaving the ~m//mg rather than ~m//smg (single line mode.) My problem is that I want $1 to equal the entire element, i.e. 
    CALCON(test2)
{
  TYPE(U16)
  FEATURE(DCOM)
  NAM(dcomc_sestmr_timeout)
  LABEL(DCOM Session Timer Timeout)
  MIN(0)
  MAX(65535)
  UNITS(ms)
}

    [download]
    but $2 to equal "test2". perl seems to be greedy, and gets all the way to the "ms" in brackets if I add the /s to the match, i.e. it is greedy. Does this explain things better? Cheers.
[reply]
[d/l]
      I have the entire file in one variable.
      Maybe you should have mentioned that. Anyway here's a working solution: 
      use strict;
use warnings;

$_ = qq"CALCON(test1)
{
  TYPE(U8)
  FEATURE(DCOM)
  NAM(stmin)
  LABEL(Min seperation time between CFs)
  MIN(0)
  MAX(127)
  UNITS(ms)  
}

CALCON(test2)
{
  TYPE(U16)
  FEATURE(DCOM)
  NAM(dcomc_sestmr_timeout)
  LABEL(DCOM Session Timer Timeout)
  MIN(0)
  MAX(65535)
  UNITS(ms)
}";

while ( /(CALCON\(\w+\)\n{\n[^}]+})/msg )
{
    print "****\n$1\n";
}

      [download]
      Output: 
      ****
CALCON(test1)
{
  TYPE(U8)
  FEATURE(DCOM)
  NAM(stmin)
  LABEL(Min seperation time between CFs)
  MIN(0)
  MAX(127)
  UNITS(ms)  
}
****
CALCON(test2)
{
  TYPE(U16)
  FEATURE(DCOM)
  NAM(dcomc_sestmr_timeout)
  LABEL(DCOM Session Timer Timeout)
  MIN(0)
  MAX(65535)
  UNITS(ms)
}

      [download]


      holli, /regexed monk/
[reply]
[d/l]
[select]
      I came up with something that I think does what you want below using "inch along with negative lookahead" strategy.
[reply]

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