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From: utashiro@sran84.sra.co.jp (Kazumasa Utashiro)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: strange regexp match
Message-ID: <224@sran84.sra.co.jp>
Date: 28 Sep 90 05:19:14 GMT
Sender: utashiro@sran84.sra.co.jp
Reply-To: utashiro@sra.co.jp
Organization: Software Research Associates, Inc., Japan
Lines: 35

I have a strange regexp match behavior.  Try this script.

------------------------------------------------------------
#!/usr/local/bin/perl

$_="xx.o:\t         U xxxxx";

case1: do m('^(.*):\t([0-9a-f ]{8}) (\w) (.*)');

$_="xx.o:\t00000000 T xxxxx";

case2: do m('^(.*):\t([0-9a-f ]{8}) (\w) (.*)');
case3: do m('^(.*.):\t([0-9a-f ]{8}) (\w) (.*)');
#                !
case4: do m('^(.*):\t?([0-9a-f ]{8}) (\w) (.*)');
#                    !
sub m {
	printf "%d: ", ++$i;
	print /$_[0]/ ? $& : "not matched", "\n";
}
__END__
------------------------------------------------------------
I've got following result from perl@28 on some machines.

1: xx.o:	         U xxxxx
2: not matched
3: xx.o:	00000000 T xxxxx
4: xx.o:	00000000 T xxxxx

Using + instead of * makes no difference.  Am I missing
something?

---
K. Utashiro
utashiro@sra.co.jp