'     999' or
'   9999' or
'9999999'
'      9'.

[download]

Is "field" length 7 or 8 chars? What is a "field" (part of a larger string)?

but when you're checking a 16 byte filed ZZZZZZZZZZZZ9V99

Um, there is no description of what you want for that one :) one thing at a time?

whilst doing the job,is getting ludicrously large and unreadable

Instead of one regex, write twelve thirteen??

Stop writing unreadable regex :) Write beautiful regex, not ugly, so you can read :) How can I hope to use regular expressions without creating illegible and unmaintainable code?

Someone at work suggested using an sprintf in it's stead within the regex, but I must be honest and say that suggestion has left me clueless on how to do it.

Are you trying to format a string? If you are, go ahead and use sprintf, otherwise ...

write a function?

Hope this helps

In reply to Re: Should be a simple spaces/digits regex....but I'm turning grey! by Anonymous Monk
in thread Should be a simple spaces/digits regex....but I'm turning grey! by viffer

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.