Expanding reg expression.

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

Hi Monks,

Is there a module, or does someone have a way of expanding a string that contains a regexp?

For example, I'd like to expand this text into a list of hosts.

"rack[001-004]"  =>  "rack001", "rack002", "rack003", "rack004"
[download]

Thanks.

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Re: Expanding reg expression. by Corion (Patriarch) on Oct 31, 2007 at 19:26 UTC
What you have is a range, not a regular expression. You can look at glob to expand such ranges or you can look at Expand Ranges in Lists of Numbers and its replies.	[reply]
Re: Expanding reg expression. by moritz (Cardinal) on Oct 31, 2007 at 20:00 UTC
I think Regexp::Genex will do what you want. Btw `[001-004]` in a regex don't match `'001'; in fact that "regex" produces <c>Invalid [] range "1-0" in regex`	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Expanding reg expression. by amarquis (Curate) on Oct 31, 2007 at 19:37 UTC
If you want what I think you want, it might be good to check out the magic in the ++ operator. "The auto-increment operator has a little extra builtin magic to it. If you increment a variable that is numeric, or that has ever been used in a numeric context, you get a normal increment. If, however, the variable has been used in only string contexts since it was set, and has a value that is not the empty string and matches the pattern `/^[a-zA-Z][0-9]\z/`, the increment is done as a string, preserving each character within its range, with carry." For example: `print ++($test = "test004");` Prints `test005`. Just be careful not to go over 999, because the carry will then start changin' the 'test' part of your string.	[reply] [d/l] [select]