Regex help reqd

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

Hello monks

I am trying a regex to extrace a specifig piece string using the below.

my $string = '<School type="content" name="Schoolpage"><section name="
+Graduation"><grade name="Iyear"><!-- Set description for BBCA --><des
+cription>'; 
if($string=~ m/(<section (.*)">?)/)
{
  print "Here ::   $1 \n";
  
}else {print "regex failed";}
[download]

Output of the above is :::

Here :: <section name="Graduation"><grade name="Iyear">

What I want is '<section name="Graduation">'.

Please advice.

Thanks in advance

Ananda

Comment on Regex help reqd Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Regex help reqd by prasadbabu (Prior) on Jun 27, 2005 at 06:38 UTC
.* leads to greediness. You must use .? to avoid the greediness, to match minimum. You can do this in many ways, like gopal suggested, you can use `[^>]+` or you can use (.?) Go through perlre. `if($string=~ m/<section [^>]+>/) { print "Here :: $& \n"; } else { print "regex failed"; } or if($string=~ m/<section .*?>/) { print "Here :: $& \n"; } else { print "regex failed"; }` [download] But first option is the safer solution. Prasad	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: Regex help reqd by Ananda (Pilgrim) on Jun 27, 2005 at 07:23 UTC
Thanks Gopal and Prasad. That was of great help. Ananda	[reply]
Re^2: Regex help reqd by Anonymous Monk on Jun 27, 2005 at 07:11 UTC
As an aisle, how will "</section>" be tested?	[reply]
Re^3: Regex help reqd by Anonymous Monk on Jun 27, 2005 at 07:20 UTC
This will do the trick `if($string=~ m/<\/section>/) { print "Here :: $& \n"; } else { print "regex failed"; }` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Regex help reqd by gopalr (Priest) on Jun 27, 2005 at 06:25 UTC
`my $string = '<School type="content" name="Schoolpage"><section name=" +Graduation"><grade name="Iyear"><description>'; if($string=~ m/<section [^>]+>/) { print "Here :: $& \n"; } else { print "regex failed"; }` [download] Output: `Here :: <section name="Graduation">` [download]	[reply] [d/l] [select]