Forgive me monks, for i have sinned. It has been many months since my last visit to the monastery... So, here's a question for anyone wiser than me (read: everybody here) - if I have a string, let's say $string = abcdef, and I want to search a textfile, I can do a simple m//

But, what if i want to be able to match any 5 out of the 6 characters in string? i.e., the following would all be desired matches to the pattern: 

 
*{1}bcdef
a*{1}cdef
ab*{1}def
abc*{1}ef
abcd*{1}f
abcde*{1}

[download]
but none of the following would match: 
abdef*{1}
adcbfe
ab*{1}cde
etc....

[download]

How would I set up that as a search pattern, or a regexp? And, of course, the $64,000 twist to the question becomes, if $string is user input, and rather than a strict 5/6 match, the user wants to define the stringency of the match (i.e., allow $n non-matching characters in $string, how could I do that?

I know that I could laboriously go through and search for each of the entries in that first code block above, but I'd prefer to automate this task, and the length of $string may regularly be 10-15 characters long, with up to 5 non-matching characters permitted per search. That becomes a large quantity of different combinations to throw in to the search... Any ideas on how to do it better?

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated,
Matt

In reply to searching for a string w/ a * in any single position? by mdunnbass

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