A regex is the wrong tool for this job. Use a hash with those numbers as keys.

use vars '%boolhash';
@boolhash{ qw(7000 7777 7778
              3886200 2200 8488
              3406 9100 29389988
              7688 5000 20 3408
              3404 7648)
         } = ();

sub mytest {
    not exists $boolhash{ $_[0] };
}
[download]

After Compline,
Zaxo

It's a little hard to see quite how you can use a regex any place that you can't use "conventional boolean logic".

However, one way to have a single regex that can be used to reject or fail a given list of numbers would be to make the regex match the specified list and then negate the test by either using !~ or simply ...not m//....

You can avoid it matching smaller chunks of larger numbers (ie. finding 7000 as a part of 70000) by anchoring the expression at both ends. Which anchor is appropriate depends on how and where it would be used. This might work for you.

 @tests =qw/1 2 3 7 700 70000 7000 7777 7778 3886200 2200 8488 3406 91
+00 29389988 7688 5000 20 3408 3404 7648/

$fail = qr/\b(?:7000|7777|7778|3886200|2200|8488|3406|9100|29389988|76
+88|5000|20|3408|3404|7648)\b/

 perl> for (@tests) { print /$fail/ ? "$_ failed\n" : "$_ passed\n" }
1 passed
2 passed
3 passed
7 passed
700 passed
70000 passed
7000 failed
7777 failed
7778 failed
3886200 failed
2200 failed
8488 failed
3406 failed
9100 failed
29389988 failed
7688 failed
5000 failed
20 failed
3408 failed
3404 failed
7648 failed
[download]

If these values are going into a config file why not list them like:

7000,7777,7778,3886200, ...

and then place them in a hash, say %not_allowed. You could then check your input using:

unless ( exists $not_allowed{ $input } ) {
    # do your stuff
}
[download]

This may require more lines of code but would be much easier to check and understand, and also easier to edit by hand - working with a list not a regex.

Populate a hash with your numbers and then test for existence, something like untested:

my @numbers = qw(123 345 456 567 890);
my %hash;
$hash{$_}++ for @numbers;

for (1,56,123,567,8888) 
{ 
if ($hash{$_})  {print "Found $_\n" }
else           { print "Not found $_\n"; }

}
[download]

--
Regards,
Helgi Briem
helgi AT decode DOT is

thanks for the replies, folks.. unfortunately, this is for a Radius server config file, and it only accepts a regex..

its quite possible I'm trying to make a regex do something that it shouldnt be doing.. *sigh* but at any rate, using a hash or basically any Perl code besides a regex causes a radius server barf..

In order to be able to accruately give you a regex that will help it is important to have the context right. So would it be possible to have a number of test case strings off valid/invalid data.

Meanwhile :-

/^\D*(?!7000|7777|7778|3886200|2200|8488|3406|9100|29389988|7688|5000|
+2
+0|3408|3404|7648)\D*[0-9]+/
[download]

Hope it helps
UnderMine

Assuming that the regex engine accepts Perl5 regex extensions, this may do what you need it to.

/^(?!7000$|7777$|7778$|3886200$|2200$|8488$|3406$|9100$|29389988$|7688
+$|5000$|20$|3408$|3404$|7648$)\d+$/
[download]

It seems to work for all the testcases in my post above plus several more I threw in.

---

Okay you lot, get your wings on the left, halos on the right. It's one size fits all, and "No!", you can't have a different color.
Pick up your cloud down the end and "Yes" if you get allocated a grey one they are a bit damp under foot, but someone has to get them.
Get used to the wings fast cos its an 8 hour day...unless the Govenor calls for a cyclone or hurricane, in which case 16 hour shifts are mandatory.
Just be grateful that you arrived just as the tornado season finished. Them buggers are real work.

Thanks for the reply, BrowserUk.. yes, it fixes the cases that didnt work before.. (it was failing on 70000, 77000 and on 207000), those passed.. I'll collect as many more cases as I can from the logfile and throw them at my test script during the course of the day..

in the interests of learning a bit more about how this works, could you please check if my decoding of the regex is correct.. ?

What you're doing is anchoring to the start of a line (^), then you got the negation (?!), then you're doing OR based matches, with one crucial difference from what I was doing, you're anchoring EACH of the matches to the end of line char ($).. and then finally 1 or more digit chars are a positive match (\d+$)..

Compared to my effort,

/^(?!.*7000|7777|7778|3886200|2200|8488|3406|9100|29389988|7688|5000|2
+0|3408|3404|7648).*[0-9]+/)
[download]

I didn't need the 0-9+, I could have simply used \d+ instead, I didnt need a .* before matching the trailing digits.. but err, one question, how does this work without a \d+ or a .* match in front ?

Oh, and one more question, please.. where do I learn more about all this ? I have a browser window opened to the perlre manpage, and another to the CD bookshelf, are there any other references on this sort of thing ? (I have a copy of Jeffery Friedls regex book, but it sorta whizzed over my head) :(

What kind of regex does the Radius server accept? Is the Radius server written in Perl? Because all regex are not equal. The basic syntax (.*+?[]) is pretty standard. The Perl 5 extensions are only available in Perl 5 and programs that use the PCRE library like Exim, Python, Apache, and PHP.

Yes, this Radius server was written in Perl.. there was an article in perl.com about it recently, you can find it here..

We run this under Perl 5.6.1, so it should accept anything that Perl 5.6.1 can handle, I think.. although their sample regex use some notations that I havent used before (ie: I learnt that ^ is a form of negation only after I read the docs)