On Jun 13, Josh said:
>Hi all,
> I'm reading Mastering Regular Expressions and it discusses a
>non-greedy version of star. can someone explain how to write this
>non-greedy version of star. (i.e. how does it differ than just *)
Thanks to Peter for plugging my modules... you might also want to take a
look at "Regular Expressions in Perl", which can be found at
http://www.pobox.com/~japhy/docs/book.html
I talk about greediness vs. non-greediness (or laziness) in chapter 6, I
believe.
The main difference is that * matches as much as it can, and then backs
off slowly until a match is complete, whereas *? matches as little as it
can, and inches forward slowly until a match is complete.
Think of it as searching through a book for something. Sometimes you're
greedy and start at the end and flip backwards. Sometimes you're lazy and
go forwards.
--
Jeff "japhy" Pinyan [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.pobox.com/~japhy/
I am Marillion, the wielder of Ringril, known as Hesinaur, the Winter-Sun.
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Perl Programmer at RiskMetrics Group, Inc. http://www.riskmetrics.com/
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** Manning Publications, Co, is publishing my Perl Regex book **
