sorry, I didn't fraze my question correctly.
example : $line="abcxabcxxabcxxxabc"; how to match everything beofre "xxx" but not xxx itself? the answer i got is to use lookaheads: my $line = "abcxxabcxxxabc"; if ($line =~ m{(.*?(?:(?!xxx).))xxx}){ print "matched: $1\n"; } else{ print "failed\n"; } very cool, thanx everyone ~i On 10/13/06, John W. Krahn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I.B. wrote: > > Hi nice people, > > Hello, > > > how to specify using regular expressions: match everything but string > (xxx) > > > > i would do this : > > > > $line =~ /[^(xxx)]+/; > > > > but, as it was mentioned before () inside character class is not > working. > > what is solution here? > > Perhaps you want: > > $line !~ /xxx/; > > > > John > -- > Perl isn't a toolbox, but a small machine shop where you can > special-order > certain sorts of tools at low cost and in short order. -- Larry > Wall > > -- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > <http://learn.perl.org/> <http://learn.perl.org/first-response > > > >