Actually, a dot star can be quite useful, and is considerably faster than using the non-greedy version. In this example, using dot star makes it easy, e.g.,
/^.*\\(.*)/
That will extract all the information after the last \. Using the .*? version it would have to be:
/.*?\\(?!.*\\)$/
This would aslo make it a lot slower.
However, trying to find the last \, like in this example, could probably be made simpler by a call to reverse. Though, in the example of extracting a filename, definately you should use a module like File::Basename, as aforementioned. This way it will be portable accross systems, and it is tested for errors, so it will save you valuable time trying to fix a regex that has something wrong with it(and errors always slip in, as do special cases). | [reply]
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Good advice dimmesdale, same with all the rest. But one point:
However, trying to find the last \, like in this example, could probably be made simpler by a call to reverse
Close, but why not rindex. Take this example:
$file = substr($path, 1 + rindex($path,'\\'));
It finds the last \ in the string and asigns everything after that.
That said, I would definately use something like File::Basename if you plan on using this script more than once.
The 15 year old, freshman programmer,
Stephen Rawls | [reply]
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