Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!bfmny0!tneff
From: tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Re: Regexps (was Re: Changing the first character of a string.)
Message-ID: <15634@bfmny0.BFM.COM>
Date: 3 Jul 90 20:03:50 GMT
References: <1990Jul3.144552.5407@uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU> <1990Jul3.184351.3820@iwarp.intel.com>
Reply-To: tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff)
Lines: 30

In article <1990Jul3.184351.3820@iwarp.intel.com> merlyn@iwarp.intel.com (Randal Schwartz) writes:
>I frequently run up against * and + matching a bit too much, and want
>to "back it off" a bit, but have found the problem without general
>solution.
>
>For example, matching the first two-digit number in a line, discarding
>all text before it.  I want to write:
>
>	s/.*(\d\d)/\1/;
>
>but instead am forced to do something like:
>
>	/\d\d.*/; $_ = $&;

Try

	/\d\d.*\n?$/ && $_ = $&;

or my fave

	/\d{2}/ && substr($_,0,length($`)) = '';

This doesn't lose the newline and you don't care what comes after.
(I wish Larry'd make $` and $' lvalues, hehe.)



-- 
"My God, Thiokol, when do you      \\    Tom Neff
want me to launch?  Next April?"   \\    tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM