Mr. Shawn H. Corey wrote: > > Perl captures on a strict left-to-right policy. Start at the left of > the regular expression and every opening parenthesis will be captured in > the next numbered variable. For your first example: > > /(lang)|(id)="(\S+)"/g > ^ ^ ^ > $1 $2 $3 > > The 'g' flag at the end makes it repeatedly apply the match. Since 'id' > appears in $string before 'lang', the first match is: $1 is undef, $2 = > 'id', $3 = 'dontcare'. The second match gives: $1 = 'lang', $2 = undef, > $3 = undef. Note that because of its level of precedence, the > alteration applies to the whole pattern so $2 and $3 are undef when > 'lang' is matched.
That would be 'alternation'. Sorry to be finicky, but your sentence loses its sense with your mistake, and this is a beginners' group. Rob -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://learn.perl.org/
