JojoZiggy
New User
Sep 3, 2010, 7:35 AM
Post #1 of 3
(1665 views)
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Matching first instance before AND after something
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Can't Post
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Hi, gurus. This problem seems really simple, but I can't figure out an easy way to do it. Sorry if it's a commonly asked question, I didn't see it in the first 5 pages of the FAQ or REGEX pages (but maybe I didn't know what to look for...).
In this string,
MARYMARYMARYJUNKHELLOJUNKBILLBILLBILL
I want to match the first "MARY" before "HELLO" and the first "BILL" after "HELLO", and then pull out all the text in between. So what I want in the end is "MARYJUNKHELLOJUNKBILL"
Here's the code I tried first:
$string = "MARYMARYMARYJUNKHELLOJUNKBILLBILLBILL";
$string =~ /(MARY.+?HELLO.+?BILL)/;
print "first try: " . $1 . "\n";
# returns MARYMARYMARYJUNKHELLOJUNKBILL
Next, I tried this, thinking breaking out the two matches would help, but no luck:
$string = "MARYMARYMARYJUNKHELLOJUNKBILLBILLBILL";
$string =~ /(HELLO.+?BILL)/;
$stuff = $1;
# returns HELLOJUNKBILL
print "bill match: " . $stuff . "\n";
$string =~ /(MARY.+?$stuff)/;
print "mary match: " . $1 . "\n";
# returns MARYMARYMARYMARYMARYJUNKHELLOJUNKBILL
Thanks for your time.
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