in reply to Re: Dominus on the non-greedy version of the ? quantifier
in thread Dominus on the non-greedy version of the ? quantifier

I know what the quantifiers mean and how greediness works – which is exactly why I’m asking. I cannot see what Dominus is hinting at by bringing up this particular example, because greediness does not affect its result in any way.

I was hoping someone would have an idea as to what he might have been thinking.

Makeshifts last the longest.

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Re^3: Dominus on the non-greedy version of the ? quantifier
by jhourcle (Prior) on Aug 07, 2006 at 14:19 UTC

    ...because greediness does not affect its result in any way.

    I was hoping someone would have an idea as to what he might have been thinking.

    You're only thinking about the final outcome. Sometimes, changes are not made for the outcome, but because it changes how it performs, and one method may be better for the normally expected input.

    Unfortunately, in this case, I'm not seeing that on my system the non-greedy being significantly better at matching the short version, and it's significantly worse at matching the long version:

    Oh -- and it _does_ change the values of $1, $2, $3, but we have no reason from the code snippet given that they're important.,/strike>

    Update: Removed extra comma, resulting in sloppy english grammer, and stressed the 'not'. Was :

    Unfortunately, in this case, I'm not seeing that on my system, the non-greedy being significantly better at matching the short version ...

    Update: tye is correct in the lack of difference. Why a non-greedy expression would match 1 when it has the option of matching 0 makes no sense to me, though.

      the non-greedy being significantly better at matching the short version

      You consider 2% "significant"? 20% is rarely significant when it comes to Benchmark results, IME.

      Oh -- and it _does_ change the values of $1, $2, $3

      It does? I don't see how. Testing with "-f" and "-field" don't show any difference for me.

      - tye