Re: Matching and replacing the minimum string from the tail of the regex

if you know the number of lines between the starting and ending lines of the block of lines you want to elide, something like this might do the trick:

my $starting_line    = qr{ ^s [^\n]* \n }xsm;  # starts with an 's'
my $intervening_line = qr{    [^\n]* \n }xsm;  # anything
my $ending_line      = qr{   e [ ] p \n }xsm;  # ends with an 'e p'

my $between = 1;

my $line = do { local $/;  <DATA> };  # slurp all the data

$line =~ s{ $start_line ${intervening_line}{$between} $end_line }
          {}gxsm;
[download]

this outputs:

Random String
s
foo
e f
blah blah
End of file
[download]

any closer?

Comment on Re: Matching and replacing the minimum string from the tail of the regex Select or Download Code

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Re^2: Matching and replacing the minimum string from the tail of the regex by Anonymous Monk on Aug 09, 2007 at 01:42 UTC
alternatively, if it is known that the intervening line(s) will never begin with some pattern: my $starter = qr{ s }xsm; # starts with this string my $never = qr{ s }xsm; # never starts with this string my $ender = qr{ e [ ] p }xsm; # ends with this string my $start_line = qr{ ^ $starter [^\n]* \n }xsm; my $intervening_line = qr{ ^ (?! $never ) [^\n]* \n }xsm; my $end_line = qr{ $ender \n }xsm; my $line = do { local $/; <DATA> }; # slurp all the data $line =~ s{ $start_line $intervening_line* $end_line } {}gxsm; print $line; __DATA__ Random String s erartt e p s foo e f blah blah s adflkja wibble wobble e p End of file [download] output: `Random String s foo e f blah blah End of file` [download]	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^3: Matching and replacing the minimum string from the tail of the regex by abitkin (Monk) on Aug 09, 2007 at 14:13 UTC
For some reason, I had trouble with your code. Instead I turned the problem on it's head. `use strict; my $lines = do{ local $/; <DATA> }; # reverse the order of the lines so that the RE matches the # last part of the region first my $reversetext = join("\n", reverse(split("\n",$lines))); $reversetext =~ s/^[^\n]e p.?s[^\n]*\n//msg; # put the lines in normal order again $lines = join("\n",reverse(split("\n", $reversetext))); print $lines; __DATA__ Random String s erartt e p s foo e f blah blah s adflkja wibble wobble e p End of file` [download] == Kwyjibo. A big, dumb, balding North American ape. With no chin.	[reply] [d/l]