From: "Peña, Botp" <botp@...>
Date: 2007-11-22T12:23:17+09:00
Subject: Re: Interpreting "(.*?)" and "(?:\d+ [.]?)" in REs

From: RichardOnRails 
# 1. "(.*?)", or specifically, the "?" in that expression.
# 2. "(?:\d+ [.]?)", or the two question marks in this case.

consider regex as another language on its own. basically, it describes string patterns, like a metastring, a string about a string... :)

besides the mastering book, the online free perl doc is very informative (and you can download the pdf too; in fact, i'm even tempted to copy it and convert the samples to ruby. is that illegal? :)

start here:
http://perldoc.perl.org/perlrequick.html

then here:
http://perldoc.perl.org/perlretut.html
http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html



# input.each do |line|

btw, in ruby, you can do

   DATA.each do ...

and you can even do DATA.rewind :)

kind regards -botp