Re: Nested captures

[Damian Conway]

Patrick R. Michaud wrote:
On Mon, May 09, 2005 at 09:14:02AM -0700, Larry Wall wrote:
:      m/ <alt: tea>  (don't) (ray) (me) (for) (solar tea), (d'oh!)
:       | <alt: BEM>  (every) (green) (BEM) (devours) (faces)
:       /;
This seems like a rather ugly syntax for what is essentially a label,
or a <null> rule.  I wonder if we can come up with something a little
prettier.  
 
I wonder if it's deserving of much in the way of special syntax at all,
given that we have a variety of ways to do it (closures come to mind).  
In the example above, one could just as easily test $1 for "don't" vs.
"every" to figure out which alternation matched.  Indeed, a simple answer
is:

     m/ $<tea>:=<null>  (don't) (ray) (me) (for) (solar tea), (d'oh!)
      | $<bem>:=<null>  (every) (green) (BEM) (devours) (faces)
      /;
and then 

    if ($/<tea>) { say "I hate solar tea" }
    if ($/<bem>) { say "I love bug-eyed monsters" }
Yes, I think this is the right answer. Much better not to multiply entities 
without necessity.

Well done, Patrick!
Damian