So, I have an interesting question and a bit of code. I didn't really know whether this was the right forum or not, but here goes.
I have two goals I would like help with: 1. Optimize/simplify the regex 2. Recognize where the regex would produce false positives on some ifDescrs which don't actually have a real hardware path Really, #1 is most befitting this mailing list, but if anyone wants to help with #2 that's great. For those of you who are famimliar, a cisco router's SNMP ifDescr can contain what i would describe as the hardware path of whatever interface you are querying. For example, "Ethernet1/0", "T3 3/0/2", "POS2/0/1". Juniper routers have a similar thing. Now, I have the following regex to split these up into four pieces. /^([^0-9]+)([0-9]+ |)([0-9]+\/[^\s]+)(.*)$/ $1 : Is a required match of some non-numeric chars. This would match "Ethernet", or the "T" in T3 or T1 $2 : An optional match which would catch the "3 " in ifDescrs like "T3 3/0/1" $3 : string starting with one or more numerics, then a "/", then all non-whitespace $4 : the rest In all cases I've seen, the text before the hardware path will only end in a numeric char if there is a space terminating it. Hence, "T3 3/0/2" returning $3 == "3/0/2" and "Ethernet0/1" returning $3 == "0/1". Now, can anyone see how the regex could be simplified? -- Shawn Leas [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yesterday I parked my car in a tow-away zone... when I came back the entire area was missing... -- Stephen Wright -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]