On 3/9/06, Brian McKee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > What is a pattern match good for if it isn't for finding a substring > in a string?
That's a fair question. A pattern match finds a match for a pattern, not a substring. Patterns can have metacharacters, they can be case-insensitive, they can be anchored, they can save data in memory variables like $3. But index() looks for a matching identical substring, and that's all. No metacharacters to worry about. Because it's a simpler operation, using index() can be faster than the corresponding pattern match. (Then again, maybe not: A lot of work has gone into optimizing Perl's regular expression engine.) But speed isn't the main reason to choose index(); it's clarity. It's a simpler operation to understand than an escaped pattern match, so I usually (but not always) go with index(). Thanks for asking! --Tom Phoenix Stonehenge Perl Training -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <http://learn.perl.org/> <http://learn.perl.org/first-response>
