Anyone,

I want to do the following match:

$var =~ m/(\d){4}(\d){2}(\d){2}(\d){2}(\d){2}(\d){2}/

Is there a more concise notation for this, given that I want to capture the values in $1, $2....$6.

Pali

Interestingly enough, I can use substr because I know the form of my variable won't change- but just out of curiosity.........


I think you really want to write

/(\d{4})(\d{2})(\d{2})(\d{2})(\d{2})(\d{2})/

which will capture groups of 4,2,2,2,2 and 2 digits - your example was going to capture the 4th 6th 8th 10th 12th and 14th digits because Perl isn't very good at saving out groups that have counts and you would have got the LAST match to each bracket set.  Hmm - I suspect that is clear as mud!

easier way? I might prefer

$regex = '(\d{4})' . ( '(\d{2})' x 5);
$var =~ /$regex/;

Sorry Graham, that was what i meant to write in the first instance (mind is asleep...)
thanks for the shorthand!

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