Chandan Kumar <chandan_28...@yahoo.com> asked: > I have query over quantifiers. > > Could you please explain the combination of operators Question mark > (?),dot(.),star(*),plus(+). > > Say this is my string: > > $_ = " thiiiiis is my first pattern ,quite confused with quantifiers" > > ex: (thi.*?) or (thi.+?) etc > > I know what each operator does if used seperately,but combination of > these operators are confusing.
You should really read the provided documentation - Uri posted about that to the list just a short while ago ;-) Please note that "." is not a quantifier. "?", "+" and "*" are. In RE, a "." by itself is the atom that matches any one character. The quantifiers mean: "?" 0 or 1 occurences of the previous expression. "+" 1 or more occurrences of the previous expression (greedy match). "*" 0 or more occurrences of the previous expression (greedy match). "*?" 0 or more occurrences of the previous expression (parsimonious match). "+?" 1 or more occurrences of the previous expression (parsimonious match). The difference between greedy and parsimonious matching is that in a greedy match, the longest possible match will be tried first whereas in a parsimonious match, the shortest match will be tried first. HTH, Thomas -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: beginners-unsubscr...@perl.org For additional commands, e-mail: beginners-h...@perl.org http://learn.perl.org/
