G'day surib,

Welcome to the monastery.

You show the original pattern as: /3B41|2RT\.\d{10}\.\d+\.bin/. Making allowances for the lack of <code> tags, I've assumed 1|2 should be [0|1|2] - this gives a regex which matches the first filename. However, making the same assumption a few lines further down, /3B4[0|1|2]RT\.\d{10}\.\d+R?\.bin/ should have matched both filenames. Was my assumption wrong? Have you shown the correct filenames? Did you type some other part of the regex incorrectly? Please clarify.

Sorry about not using the

.

Here's my code when I actually hard code the '7R', yet it still fails.
+  I must be missing something else? <br>


<code> my ($product, $year, $month, $day, $hour, $suffix, $ver ) = spl
+it /\./, $fileName;

# test file name--naming convention is '<product>.<year>.<month>.<day>
+.<hour>.bin' 

if ($fileName =~ /3B4[0|1|2]RT\.\d{10}\.\7R\.bin/) { 
   ($product, $year, $month, $day, $hour, $ver) = 
      ($fileName =~ /(3B4.RT)\.(\d{4})(\d\d)(\d\d)(\d\d)\.(7R\)\.bin/)
+;
      $version = sprintf "%03d", $ver; # a little confusing, $version 
+is global
                                       # $ver is local
}
elsif ($fileName =~ /3B4\dRT\.\d\d\d\d\.\d\d\.\d\d.\d\dz\.bin/) {
    ($product, $year, $month, $day, $hour, $suffix) = split /\./, $fil
+eName;
}
else {
    print STDERR "($0,$$) ERROR:  invalid file name--'$fileName'\n" if
+ $opt_v;
    exit 2;
}
[download]

Your solution which adds R? to the original regex was on the right track and achieves what you want, albeit poorly:

$ perl -Mstrict -Mwarnings -E 'my $fileName;
my $re = qr{3B4[0|1|2]RT\.\d{10}\.\d+R?\.bin};
$fileName = "3B40RT.2000033121.7.bin.gz";
say +($fileName =~ /$re/) ? "match" : "no match";
$fileName = "3B40RT.2000033121.7R.bin.gz";
say +($fileName =~ /$re/) ? "match" : "no match";
'
match
match
[download]

I don't think you understand character classes or alternation (perhaps both). Where you're trying to match a 0, 1 or 2 in the same position, [0-2] would be far better than [0|1|2] (which is trying to match a 0, pipe, 1, pipe or 2 in the same position) - the 2nd pipe is redundant and the 1st pipe isn't wanted anyway. So, here's an improved version:

$ perl -Mstrict -Mwarnings -E 'my $fileName;
my $re = qr{3B4[0-2]RT\.\d{10}\.\d+R?\.bin};
$fileName = "3B40RT.2000033121.7.bin.gz";
say +($fileName =~ /$re/) ? "match" : "no match";
$fileName = "3B40RT.2000033121.7R.bin.gz";
say +($fileName =~ /$re/) ? "match" : "no match";
'
match
match
[download]

Recommended reading:

• perlrequick - Perl regular expressions quick start
• perlretut - Perl regular expressions tutorial
• perlre - Perl regular expressions, the rest of the story
• Writeup Formatting Tips

-- Ken

Or like this: (I've tried so many combinations I'm confusing myself!)

if ($fileName =~ /3B4[0|1|2]RT\.\d{10}\.7R.bin/) {
   ($product, $year, $month, $day, $hour, $ver) =
      ($fileName =~ /(3B4.RT)\.(\d{4})(\d\d)(\d\d)(\d\d)\.(7R)\.bin/);
      $version = sprintf "%03d", $ver; # a little confusing, $version 
+is global
                                       # $ver is local
[download]

May you wanted something like this:

use warnings;
use strict;

while ( defined( my $filename = <DATA> ) ) {
    chomp $filename;
    if ( my ( $product, $year, $month, $day, $hour, $suffix, $ver ) =
        $filename =~ m/^(.+?)\.(\d{4})(\d{2})(\d{2})(\d{2})\.(.+?)\.(.
++?)\./ )
    {
        print join ' ', ( $product, $year, $month, $day, $hour, $suffi
+x, $ver ),
          $/;
    }
}

__DATA__
3B40RT.2000033121.7.bin.gz
3B40RT.2000033121.7R.bin.gz
3B40RT.2000033121.7RWER.bin.gz
[download]

...
if (
        my ( $product, $year, $month, $day, $hour, $suffix, $ver ) =
        $filename =~ m/^(.+?) # matches PRODUCT
                       \.
                        (\d{4}) # matches YEAR
                        (\d{2}) # matches MONTH
                        (\d{2}) # matches DAY
                        (\d{2}) # matches HOUR
                      \.
                        (.+?)   # SUFFIX matches both 7,7R or 7anythin
+g
                      \.
                        (.+?)   # VERSION 
                      \./x
      )
    {
        print join ' ', ( $product, $year, $month, $day, $hour, $suffi
+x, $ver ),
          $/;
    }
...
[download]

Here's a splitting and unpacking option for your data set that puts the desired elements into an array:

use Modern::Perl;

for ( grep /\S/, <DATA> ) {
    my @data = ( split /\./ )[ 0 .. 3 ];
    splice @data, 1, 1, unpack '(a4)(a2)*', $data[1];
    say "@data";
}

__DATA__
3B40RT.2000033121.7.bin.gz
3B40RT.2000033121.7R.bin.gz
3B40RT.2000033121.7RWER.bin.gz
[download]

Output:

3B40RT 2000 03 31 21 7 bin
3B40RT 2000 03 31 21 7R bin
3B40RT 2000 03 31 21 7RWER bin
[download]

filename has 3B40

pattern has 3B41

Never the twain shall match.

It finds all 3B40, 3B41 and 3B42. What it doesn't find is the '7R'.