Re: regex matching specific strings.

You could use the anchors ^ and $ (Regular Expressions) to force your string to match at beginning and ending of the string respectively. So your code could look something like:

$var =~ /^(?:(?:abc)|(?:def)|(?:ghi))$/;

Regarding skipping regular expressions entirely, since you are testing literal equality, it may make more sense from a maintenance perspective to just test equality with a set of or clauses (perlop):

if ($var eq 'abc' or $var eq 'def' or $var eq 'ghi') { ..code..}

Update: Fixed code, as per ikegami's post below

Comment on Re: regex matching specific strings. Select or Download Code

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Re^2: regex matching specific strings. by ikegami (Patriarch) on Jul 22, 2009 at 23:07 UTC
`$var =~ /^(?:abc)\|(?:def)\|(?:ghi)$/;` is wrong. It matches strings that start with "abc" contain "def", end with "ghi", or end with "ghi\n" You want `$var =~ /^(?:abc\|def\|ghi)\z/;` [download]	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^3: regex matching specific strings. by markkawika (Monk) on Jul 22, 2009 at 23:50 UTC
My only tiny quibble with that regex, correct as it is, is that using `^` in combination with `\z` might be confusing to a future reader. I'd suggest: `$var =~ /\A(?:abc\|def\|ghi)\z/;` [download] Which is technically exactly the same as ikegami's suggestion, but points out to the reader "Hey I'm using less-common techniques in this regex" right at the beginning with that `\A`.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^4: regex matching specific strings. by Anonymous Monk on Jul 23, 2009 at 00:42 UTC
That is funny, because every single character in a regex could be critical, so unless you know exact meaning of every single character, you should be very very careful :)	[reply]