On Thu, Dec 29, 2011 at 1:17 PM, Xi Chen <cxde...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hello everyone, > > I have a question about how to translate the meaning of ".+?". Please > see the examples below: > SASI_Hs01_00205058 HUMAN NM_005762 857 MISSION® siRNA 2 > 140.00 > I want to get number"857", I found the command below works: > perl -ne 'if (/(SASI\w+)(.+?)\s(\d+)\s/) { print "$3\n"; }' > but ".+" or ".*"doesn't work. I don't know why "?" is so important? >
I believe it makes the grouping optional. Match 1 or 0 times HTH, Chris -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: beginners-unsubscr...@perl.org For additional commands, e-mail: beginners-h...@perl.org http://learn.perl.org/