use strict;
use warnings;
my $source = 'Posted by mad max beyond eggdome on September 04, 2003';

if ( $source =~ /^Posted by (.*?) on /i ) {
  print qq("$1") . "\n";
}
[download]

C:\>perl -MYAPE::Regex::Explain -e "print YAPE::Regex::Explain->new(qr
+/^Posted by (.*?) on /)->explain()"
The regular expression:

(?-imsx:^Posted by (.*?) on )

matches as follows:

NODE                     EXPLANATION
----------------------------------------------------------------------
(?-imsx:                 group, but do not capture (case-sensitive)
                         (with ^ and $ matching normally) (with . not
                         matching \n) (matching whitespace and #
                         normally):
----------------------------------------------------------------------
  ^                        the beginning of the string
----------------------------------------------------------------------
  Posted by                'Posted by '
----------------------------------------------------------------------
  (                        group and capture to \1:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
    .*?                      any character except \n (0 or more times
                             (matching the least amount possible))
----------------------------------------------------------------------
  )                        end of \1
----------------------------------------------------------------------
   on                      ' on '
----------------------------------------------------------------------
)                        end of grouping
----------------------------------------------------------------------
[download]

-enlil

The only issue with this regex (and the poster's original idea as well) is it will not properly capture the username if it contains ' on '. For example:

my $source = 'Posted by getting on your nerves on September 04, 2003';

It's probably a good idea to anchor on more than just the ' on ' part like:

my $source = 'Posted by getting on your nerves on September 04, 2003';
if ($source =~ /Posted by (.+?) on \w+ \d{2}, \d{4}$/) { ... }
[download]

Regards

m.att

The only issue with this regex (and the poster's original idea as well) is it will not properly capture the username if it contains ' on '

Noted. So we capture up until the last ' on '.

use strict;
use warnings;
my $source = 'Posted by getting on my nerves on September 04, 2003';

if ( $source =~ /^Posted by (.*?) on (?!.* on )/i ) {
  print qq("$1") . "\n";
}
[download]

blokhead is right.. and I will go lick my wounds now.

Thanks enlil for the response. That does work. My only problem is, I've been warned on perlmonks several times of using .*. I guess in this case it would be fine though because I do want everything grabbed up until the (space)on(space). Maybe I was just trying to be too fancy. :)

The word boundary device, \b, is useful for weeding out coincidental inclusion in "beyond". With space expected, you probably don't need it. You can try to match minimal or maximal length with quantifiers. I agree you're headed the wrong direction by trying to exclude characters. Does this do what you want?

if ($source =~ /posted by (.*?) on /i) {
    #do something with $1
}
[download]

Your code lacks a sigil on $source, and doesn't really do anything because it's evaluated in void context.

Your code lacks a sigil on $source, and doesn't really do anything because it's evaluated in void context.

Sorry, I actually am coding this in Ruby. However, when I have a problem in other languages, I usually jump right to a perl -e ' code_block;', especially regexes. And whenever i have any kind of a problem that the perlmonks can help me out in, I go right here first...

Update:

Yes, it does do what I want. I just get leary when using .*. I've seen monks chastised a few times on perlmonks for that. But in this case, it should be fine. I was just wondering if there was another way.

Thanks