From: "Bartosz Dziewoński" <matma.rex@...>
Date: 2011-08-13T06:34:45+09:00
Subject: Re: Odd regexp behavior

The first one, (\s|$), is simply a group,  matching either whitespace,
or a position - end-of-line. The other one is a lookahead group which
matches a *position* - a *zero-width string*, if you like - if, at
this place in string, either following characters are whitespace, or
this position is also the end of line (the following characters
themselves are *not* matched).

You need to understand that once a character is matched, it's *gone* -
this gsub/match/scan/whatever will not match it again in this run.

Have you tried inputting the data, and both regexes, in regexpal and
comparing the results? I think it really clearly shows graphically
what I mean.

-- Matma Rex