Re^4: regexp: removing extra whitespace

There is no \n{3,} in my code.

That was an abbreviation. It was quicker to type \n{3,} than "it doesn't catch the 3 or more consecutive new lines."

Here's what I need to accomplish with the regexp.

/\s(?<![ \n])/
/(?<=\s|^) | (?=\s|$)/
/\n\n\K\n+/
[download]

Unfortunately the second statement above doesn't work. I'm using perl v5.10.1 and it gives the following error when that statement is used.

"Variable length lookbehind not implemented in regex /(?<=\s|^) | (?=\s|$)/ at test.pl line 10."

Comment on Re^4: regexp: removing extra whitespace Download Code

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Re^5: regexp: removing extra whitespace by GrandFather (Saint) on Nov 04, 2011 at 21:41 UTC
In `(?<=\s\|^)` \s is one character wide and ^ (an anchor) is 0 characters wide hence the "variable length" error. Update: `(?<=(?<=\s)\|^)` may work for you though. True laziness is hard work	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^6: regexp: removing extra whitespace by ikegami (Patriarch) on Nov 05, 2011 at 01:23 UTC
I'd go with `(?<!\S)` [download] so `s/[^\S \n]//g; s/(?<!\S) +\| +(?!\S)//g; s/\n\n\K\n+//g;` [download]	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^6: regexp: removing extra whitespace by perlmax (Initiate) on Nov 04, 2011 at 23:24 UTC
`(?<=(?<=\s)\|^)` may work for you though. That fixed it! Thanks.	[reply] [d/l]