Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!usc!ucsd!ucbvax!TAURUS.BITNET!shani
From: shani@TAURUS.BITNET
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: a regular expression question
Keywords: rexp match
Message-ID: <1336@taurus.BITNET>
Date: 27 May 90 14:51:02 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: <shani%math.tau.ac.il@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Organization: Tel-Aviv Univesity Math and CS school, Israel
Lines: 18

Hi. I hope someone will help me to figure this out:

When I use the matching operator on something like

"cp" =~ /cp\s*@*\s*/

it matches, and I think it shouldn't because as far as I understand,
only expressions of the form "cp\s*@*\s*" (that is -
cp\s<anything>@<anything>\s<anything> ) should have matched the pattern, and
"cp" does not even include the '@' ! Even more confusing is the fact that
"cp aa@bb cc" matches (which I expected), but $+ = "cp " !!!

Could anyone help? I want only "cp\s<anything>@<anything>\s<anything>" to
match.

Thanks in advance

O.S.