Gecko comes first in the string that is being searched. When the regex engine is trying to match a regex in a string, it starts at the first character of the string and tries to match from the beginning of the regex. If it can't match at that position, it moves to the next character of the string and starts trying to match again (unless you anchor the regex). In this case, the match keeps failing until it gets to the point in the string where 'Gecko' appears. At that point, the regex engine says to itself: "Can this match 'opera'? No. Can this match 'netscape'? No. Can this match 'gecko'? Yes. Return captured string 'gecko'. Done." Which happens before it gets to the point in the string where 'Netscape' appears.

kelan

Perl6 Grammar Student

In reply to Re: (3) String order in regex match - left to right, or right to left? by kelan
in thread String order in regex match - left to right, or right to left? by Alex

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