On Thu, 13 Jun 2002 21:36:25 -0700, Paul Makepeace wrote:
>Can someone explain the first result?
>
>$ perl -wle '$_ = "small - medium - large";
> /- (.+?)$/; print $1;
>medium - large
>I was expecting just "large" with the non-greedy match.
Basic rule: non-greediness only affects the right hand side of a match.
Put in a more technical way: the regex scans the string fro a match from
left to right, trying each character in turn as a first character for a
match. It stops when it finds one. The "non-greedy" rule only applies to
what it matches, in case of multiple candidates, with this starting
point.
Or, with another slogan: the leftmost match wins.
--
Bart.
