in reply to Regex fun

I would assume that quantifier cannot be a '\x' variable, but don't really know.

It's simpler than that: The quantifier cannot be variable. I presume it could be, but no one's done the work.

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^2: Regex fun
by JadeNB (Chaplain) on Dec 15, 2009 at 21:08 UTC
    It's simpler than that: The quantifier cannot be variable.
    This must mean something other than what it seems (to me) to mean: 
    $ perl -E 'my $quant = 2; "ab" =~ /.{$quant}/ and say "Matched"'
Matched

    [download]
    shows that the ‘length’ of the quantifier can be given by a variable.
[reply]
[d/l]

      I didn't say you couldn't build regexps dynamically. I said the quantifier can't be variable. Perl regular expressions don't even have variables, so you couldn't possibly have shown one being used.

      You can't have a quantifier until you have a regexp, and you don't have a regexp until you interpolate anything that needs to be interpolated.

      What's the quantifier in the following? 

      $ perl -E 'my $x = "2"; "ab" =~ /.{$x}/ and say "Matched"'
Matched

      [download]

      Are you saying it's different in this one? 

      $ perl -E 'my $x = "{2}"; "ab" =~ /.$x/ and say "Matched"'
Matched

      [download]

      What about this one? 

      $ perl -E 'my $x = "2}"; "ab" =~ /.{$x/ and say "Matched"'
Matched

      [download]

      In all cases, the quantifier is {2}. No variables is involved. Sure, the regexp is produced from a variable, but that has nothing to do with the quantifier.

      Update: Clarified.

[reply]
[d/l]
[select]
        Perl regular expressions don't even have variables, so you couldn't possibly have shown one being used.

        This is what I first thought you meant, but it didn't make any sense to me. If one distinguishes “regex variables” (variable at regex run-time) from “Perl variables” (constant at each regex run-time *), then, as you (basically) say, the only ones (I think) are the \1 back-references; but, when Hena said

        I would assume that quantifier cannot be a '\x' variable
        you said
        It's simpler than that: The quantifier cannot be variable.
        The only reason I could think of to make this comment is if there were some other sort of variable, but you seem to be saying that there isn't. Did I misunderstand?

        UPDATE: * False, as I finally realised in Re^6: Regex fun.

[reply]
[d/l]

In Section Seekers of Perl Wisdom