Optional parameters to regular expressions

Paul Fenwick pjf at perltraining.com.au
Sun Oct 27 23:12:33 CST 2002


G'day Scotty,

On Mon, Oct 28, 2002 at 04:04:23PM +1100, Scott Penrose wrote:

> Is there a way I can do something like this.
> 
> my $o = 'i';
> print "got it" if ($str =~ /fred/$o);
> 
> ie: I want to be able to use a parameter to say it is case insensitive 
> without having to use multiple if.

There sure is!  You need to use non-matching parantheses, (?:), which
also allow you to turn regexp switches on and off.  For your example:

	print "got it" if $str =~ /(?$o:fred)/;

Switches places between the ? and : in your non-matching parentheses
are turned on for that sub-expression.  Likewise, you can use "-i"
to turn case-insensitivity off until the end of the sub-expression.

All the best,

	Paul

-- 
Paul Fenwick <pjf at perltraining.com.au> | http://perltraining.com.au/
Director of Training                   | Ph:  +61 3 9354 6001
Perl Training Australia                | Fax: +61 3 9354 2681



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