Pattern Matching

New to Perl

[MJZ_Student]

HI I'm trying to get a handle on pattern matching and want to check:
"This is 1 and 2 and 3" to find that it has "123" in order.
This means that:
"This is 2 and 1 and 3" would not be matched.

Now I've tried various patterns \b[1.2.3]\b which matches if 1 or 2 or 3 is present.
Is there something I can use to say AND?
I've tried && with no result.

[coopster]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld, MJZ_Student.

If you want to match '123' in that order then you do not want to use the brackets as they represent a character class. So, if you wanted to find '123' in the string "Hey, it's as easy as 123!" you might use something like /123/

There are some some regular expression tutorial links in this thread that you may want to review.

[webmasterworld.com...]

[MJZ_Student]

Thanks I'm heading to the Tutorials.

I'll be back if I need a pointer.

Mike

[MJZ_Student]

OK.

I can match '123' but I want to match them even if they have letters/words in between them. I can't find an AND option in the tutorials.

Any suggestions.

Mike

[andrew_m]

1\D*2\D*3

in this particular case will match 1, then anything non-digital optionally, then 2, than something non-digital and than 3. It won't match on 1923 though. Matching on that is a little tougher.

[MJZ_Student]

That gets it done.

Thanks.

Mike

[MJZ_Student]

OK.

I've been reading the Perl Black Book and documentation on the net including learn.perl.org

What I want to do is check if I have three vowels in a string so I came up with this pattern:

Enter pattern: m/a{3}¦e{3}¦i{3}¦o{3}¦u{3}/g
Enter string: this is a testing time
Nope!
then I tried the following and thought OK I'm close but when I persisted and tested all of them I got down to uuu and aaa and got a perculiar result.
Next string: eee
We have a match
Next string: ooo
We have a match
Next string: iii
We have a match
Next string: uuu
Nope!
Next string: aaa
Nope!
Why am I getting a match on eee, ooo,iii but not aaa or uuu?
Why does it not find three i's in my first test string

Mike

[andrew_m]

Don't know why it does not match on a's and u's, but is not /^[auioe]{3}$/ what you're looking for? If all you care about is it being a vowel, than character class like that should be the answer.

[MJZ_Student]

Andrew
^ and $ are anchors
^ = start of string
$ = End of string
( ) = a grouping say I'm looking for s(a¦e¦i)t which would find sit,set,sat but not sot.
{n,m} and variants mean from n to m occurrences
if I want 3 or more should I use {3,}
[aeiou] = represents a metacharacter.
[^aeiou] = not these ones.

I've tried the pattern you suggest is it the way I'm doing it in code that is wrong?

Here is a extract:

if ($string =~ m/$pattern/){
print "We have a match\n";
} else {
print "Nope!\n";
}
print "Next string: ";

Mike

:-)

[MJZ_Student]

Andrew I thought the full code might be better.

#! C:\perl\bin\perl

use warnings;
use strict;

my ($pattern, $string);
print "Enter pattern: ";
chomp($pattern = <STDIN>);

print "Enter string: ";
while (<STDIN>){
chomp($string = $_);

if ($string =~ m/$pattern/){
print "We have a match\n";
} else {
print "Nope!\n";
}
print "Next string: ";
}

Mike

[andrew_m]

I guess I misunderstood what you're trying to match.

Are you trying to match if there are exactly 3 vowels somewhere in the string? Like "this string" won't match and "another" will?

Then this will do:

perl -ne 'm/^([^aeuio]*[aeuio]){3}[^aeuio]*$/i && print "OK\n"'

[MJZ_Student]

Help

I have a pattern which will split a web address the code looks like this:

my ( $proto, $host, $port, $path, $query, $frag);
$proto = '(\w*)';
$host = '([\w\.]*)';
$port = ':(\d*)';
$path = '([\w/\.]*)';
$query = '\?([\w=]*)';
$frag = '#(\w*)';

while(<STDIN>){

chomp;
my $url = "${proto}://${host}${port}?${path}${query}?${frag}?";
my @answers = m/$url/;

print ("Protocol = $answers[0]\n");
print ("Host = $answers[1]\n");
}

My proble is I get nothing in my @answers array.
Is there a simple thing I'm missing or am I way off track here.

[andrew_m]

Well, there is a couple of things I'd never do in my code, but the show stopper is the fact that your $url for query and frag translates into something like

...\?([\w=]*)?#(\w*)?

which does not make? and # optional -- they have to be present.

Andrew.

[MJZ_Student]

Andrew

Thank you for your patience.

my expression looks like this:
(\w*)://([\w\.]*):(\d*)([\w/\.]*)\?([\w=]*)#(\w*)

[test.com...]

which means the \1 = \w* or http
\2 = [\w\.]* or www.test.com
\3 = \d* nothing in this case
\4 = [\w/\.]* or test.cgi

in my code $url = (\w*)://([\w\.]*):(\d*)([\w/\.]*)\?([\w=]*)#(\w*)

If I key in [test.com...] I would expect to get at least \1 \2 and \4 but I get nothing in the $host.

I guess the question is how do I apply $_ against my pattern in the $url scalar so each pattern picks up the correct value.

[edited by: coopster at 3:24 am (utc) on Mar. 24, 2005]
[edit reason] Disabled graphic smile faces for this post [/edit]

[andrew_m]

No, there is nothing in your expression that says that the question mark is optional yet your test string does not have it -- thus the whole thing does not match and you don't get anything for host or anything else.

[MJZ_Student]

Andrew I think I understand.

The? can make it optional so if I use the following:

(\w*)://([\w\.]*):?(\d*)([\w/\.]*)\?([\w=]*)#?(\w*)

It will work if I have a data there or I don't.

I have been using Regex Coach which is a good tool and I get a match with or without the port etc.

So I applied it to my program and it works, although I have yet to test it for a wide range of possibilities.

Thansk for your persisting with the "nothing makes it optional" as the penny finaly dropped.

ab?c = an a followed by an optional b followed by a c; that is, either abc or ac appear in many tutorials but the obvious is sometimes hidden in plain sight.

Mike

[MJZ_Student]

OK I can separate the URL into groups, how can I test that if a : is entered we have a number following.

(\w*)://([\w\.]*):?(\d*)/?([\w/\.]*)

with [test.com:...]
I should get in $1 http in $2 www.test.com and a null in $3 and in $4 path.

Mike

[MJZ_Student]

(\w*)://([\w\.]*):?(?=\d+)(\d*)/?(?<=/)([\w/\.]*)\?([\w=]*)#?(\w*)

used on

[test.com:80...]

gives me the following groups

¦http¦www.test.com¦80¦path/more_path¦who=what¦fragment

The only issue I now have is I've lost the 'optional' part for both port :80 and Path /

I want to validate the url and fail it if it has an : which is not followed by a number and fail it if the path is not preceded by a /.

While I can get the thing to work as optional as soon as I put in the look back and look ahead it forces these to be included rather than optional.

Any hint about how better to use the look ahead or look behind?

[wruppert]

The URI module and its sub-modules do a pretty good job of manipulating URL's.

[search.cpan.org...]

[MJZ_Student]

Thank you I had a look at the module. Unfortunately I'm a student and am required to do this task using a regular expression.

I'm getting close but no cigar at this point. Any other resources you could recommend. I have the Perl Black Book, the Camel Book and some notes from various internet sites. I need to look at the perlretut documentation which I'll do tonight.

Mike

[MJZ_Student]

I have to use a regular expression to parse a url
I have the following:

(\w*)://([\w\.]*):?([?=\d+]\d*)?/?([?=\w+][\w/\.]*)?\?([\w=]*)?#?(\w*)?

The issue I have is if I want the port to be optional I include the? marks. How do I indicate that if the : appears we must have a port, ie numbers following.

With the above and a test url equal to :
[test.com:?p=o#frag...]
I get the following result:
¦http¦www.test.com¦?¦p¦=o¦frag

Where? is the port p is the path =0 the query and frag the fragment.