Personally I get sick of all the regexp questions on here but this is one I don't ever seeing before or heard of being done.

I call a regexp with a hash: 
$f->do_this({
        '.*\.doc$'    => [qw/delete_me         1/],
        '.*\.xls$'     => [qw/copy_to            C:\test/],
        'dean'         => [qw/return_this        rel_file|stat_8/], 
        'F:/dean/     => ['mirror_to',        'C:\test']
        });

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... which is compiles into a search string in the object using the method ... 
sub do_this {
    my ($self, $args) = @_;
    my %hash = %{$args};
    while (my ($d, $r) = each (%hash)) {
        $self->{actions}{$d} = $r;    
        #print "D: $d\nR: @$r\n";
    }
    my $string = undef;
    map {$string .= $_ . "|"} keys(%{$args});
    $string =~ s/\|$//;         ##remove the last pipe symbol
    $string = qr/$string/i;
    $self->{find} = $string;    ## this is the string to match files a
+gainst
    #print $self->{find};
}

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.... now when I do a pattern match against it (which by the way works perfectly!) ... I then have a problem ... I know $& returns the matched string ... but I need what PATTERN WAS USED to match against the string. How?

This is the code where I do the matching and want to return the PATTERN USED. 
if (/$self->{find}/) {
                my $this = $&;
                my $matched = ## find pattern used here
                process($self, $_, $dir, $matched);
            }

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Reasons is I then need to process the original hash (shown at the top of this) using the PATTERN USED as the key to the hash for what entry was found. How can I do this?

Dean
The Funkster of Mirth
Programming these days takes more than a lone avenger with a compiler. - sam
RFC1149: A Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers

In reply to Returning regexp pattern that was used to match by crabbdean

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