Re^4: Negating a regexp

Nope, doesn't work.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;

while (<DATA>) {
    s/(.*ing)((?!bob|fred|bill)\w+?)(more|less)/$1HIT$3/;
    print $_;
}

__DATA__
somestringbilless
[download]

outputs

somestringbilless
[download]

and not

somestringHITless
[download]

Comment on Re^4: Negating a regexp Select or Download Code

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Re^5: Negating a regexp by GrandFather (Saint) on Jan 31, 2006 at 23:00 UTC
which is actually correct (bill is rejected remember). Try `somestringtedless` instead (ted is not rejected - lucky ted) DWIM is Perl's answer to Gödel	[reply] [d/l]
Re^6: Negating a regexp by ikegami (Patriarch) on Jan 31, 2006 at 23:05 UTC
I didn't say it never works. I know it works for `"ted"`, but it doesn't work for `"bil"`. `"bil"` doesn't match `/bob\|fred\|bill/` so it should be changed to `"HIT"`. `[^chars]` means "something that isn't `'c'`, `'h'`, `'a'`, `'r'` or `'s'`". What you posted doesn't necessarily mean "something that isn't `'bob'`, `'fred'` or `'bill'`". (It depends on what `bob`, `fred`, `bill` and `more` really are.) Update: Added "necessarily".	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^7: Negating a regexp by GrandFather (Saint) on Jan 31, 2006 at 23:10 UTC
Ah yes, I see what you mean. My eye didn't notice that it was billess rather than billless. Tricky! DWIM is Perl's answer to Gödel	[reply]