After reading a merlyn article I tried to use the /g modifier in a regex in list context to populate an array with matches, like so: 
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

my $mm=qq(\"000.E+3\",\"\",\"\",\"\",\"QCA-086_2\",\"-1\",\"P\",\"FALS
+E\"); 
my @p = ($mm=~m/(\"[A-Za-z0-9_\-,.+]+\")/g); 
print map {qq($_\n)} @p;
1;

[download]
And I get: 
"000.E+3"
","
","
","
","
","
","

[download]
When I try and make the match optional: 
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

my $mm=qq(\"000.E+3\",\"\",\"\",\"\",\"QCA-086_2\",\"-1\",\"P\",\"FALS
+E\"); 
my @p = ($mm=~m/(\"(?:[A-Za-z0-9_\-,.+]+)?\")/g); 
print map {qq($_\n)} @p;
1;

[download]
I get: 
"000.E+3"
""
""
""
"QCA-086_2"
"-1"
"P"
"FALSE"

[download]
Which is what I wanted. I understand that in the first case the regex failed on the second element of $mm but shouldn't it have continued on to the end of the string? Second, where did the comma characters in the output come from?

Celebrate Intellectual Diversity

In reply to regex match in list context by InfiniteSilence

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.