in reply to Regular Expression Translation Help!

You already got a nice answer from kennethk. I just wanted to add that you may want to move the caret left one position though: Currently USA must be at the start of the string, but BRA and CAN can be anywhere....

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Re^2: Regular Expression Translation Help!
by Anonymous Monk on Nov 30, 2010 at 20:43 UTC
    Would this be OK or the right thing is to move the caret left outside?
    Could the first way work? 
    ${ ($acc =~ /(^USA|^BRA|^CAN)?(.*?)(IN)?$/i) ? $2 : $acc }

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    or 
    ${ ($acc =~ /^(USA|BRA|CAN)?(.*?)(IN)?$/i) ? $2 : $acc }

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      The results in the two cases are identical since ^ is a zero-width match. I personally think the second option is better because it is clearer and has fewer characters, hence is less sensitive to typos, but that is wholly subjective.
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        For me if something else is not one of the 3 letters; USA or BRA or CAN it will only grab what ever is after the letters and stored it in $2. Otherwise it will grab the letlers and what ever is after, like USA1111 or BRA1111 or CAN11111, no?
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