Regexp: non greedy?

[Oliver]

Dear all

I know, that its probably a little boring for the "pro"s to answer
question about regexp...
...but, bevor I start to cry I'd like to ask for a helping hand.

I have the following regexp:
$message =~ m/(\:59\:(.+)?(\n\:\d\d\:))/s ;

I am expecting it to grab everything whats between :59: and :70: into
$2.
Unfortunately it does it greedy that for some examples it does not
the add the first but the last match of :59: and :70:.

What can I do, that it matches the first occurance between :59: and :
70: ?

Regards,
Oliver

Example Data:

a)

:21: Hello World
:23A: 12344523423
:59: I Am a line
I am another line
me too
I could be another but mustn't
:70: ABRV
:71A: kkk

b)

:21: Hello World
:23A: 12344523423
:59: I Am a line
I am another line with a number
:70: ABRV
:71G: kkk
:70: ABRV2
:71H: lll
:70: ABRV3

[RedGrittyBrick]

Oliver wrote:

> I have the following regexp:
> $message =~ m/(\:59\:(.+)?(\n\:\d\d\:))/s ;
>
> I am expecting it to grab everything whats between :59: and :70: into
> $2.
> Unfortunately it does it greedy that for some examples it does not
> the add the first but the last match of :59: and :70:.
>
> What can I do, that it matches the first occurance between :59: and :
> 70: ?
>
> Regards,
> Oliver
>
> Example Data:
>

> [snip, see below]

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;

my $x=<<END;

:21: Hello World
:23A: 12344523423
:59: I Am a line
I am another line
me too
I could be another but mustn't
:70: ABRV
:71A: kkk

END

my $y=<<END;

:21: Hello World
:23A: 12344523423
:59: I Am a line
I am another line with a number
:70: ABRV
:71G: kkk
:70: ABRV2
:71H: lll
:70: ABRV3

END

for ($x,$y) {
if (/:59:(.+?):70:/s) {
print "\n'$1'\n";
}
}

--
RGB

[Jim Gibson]

In article
<3cfed297-ddee-46e1...@b1g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>,
Oliver <oli.m...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear all
>
> I know, that its probably a little boring for the "pro"s to answer
> question about regexp...
> ...but, bevor I start to cry I'd like to ask for a helping hand.
>
> I have the following regexp:
> $message =~ m/(\:59\:(.+)?(\n\:\d\d\:))/s ;

You need to put the '?' directly after the '+', not after the group. If
it is after the ')', it applies to the group ("zero or one of '(.+') )
and does not modify the '+':

$message =~ m/(\:59\:(.+?)(\n\:\d\d\:))/s ;

--
Jim Gibson

Posted Via Usenet.com Premium Usenet Newsgroup Services
----------------------------------------------------------
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[xho...@gmail.com]

Oliver <oli.m...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear all
>
> I know, that its probably a little boring for the "pro"s to answer
> question about regexp...
> ...but, bevor I start to cry I'd like to ask for a helping hand.
>
> I have the following regexp:
> $message =~ m/(\:59\:(.+)?(\n\:\d\d\:))/s ;

The ? above is the "1 or 0 quantifier", not the greedy modifier, as it does
not immediately follow another quantifier. It is quantifying the entire
(.+) expression. To get what you want, you need to move ? inside the
parenthesis.

(.+?)

Xho

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[Oliver]

...

>
> The ? above is the "1 or 0 quantifier", not the greedy modifier, as it does
> not immediately follow another quantifier.  It is quantifying the entire
> (.+) expression.  To get what you want, you need to move ? inside the
> parenthesis.
>
> (.+?)
>
> Xho
>

...

Thank you all for your kind replys.
The problem was indeed my wrong intepretation of the question mark.

Although, the main issue was my understanding of the text file:
against my assumption - and against the specs (of so called MT101
format) - , :70: (and following) appears more than once in the text
file .. in fact, the messages where concatinated by transaction. ..
this just by the way.

Thanks to RedGrittyBrick: You've made my code smother ( to put it
directly into the "if"-loop). :-)

Regards,
Oliver