Ensuring part of a string does not match whilst the rest does

[Zhris]

Hey,

I have an array of strings:

my @strings = ("abcZZZabc","defHOMEdef","hijYYYhij");

I want to ensure that only strings that don't contain HOME in the middle will be pushed into a new array. However I am having problems trying to create a single regular expression which will complete the task.

I can't use [] character classes because [^HOME] would match the letters of the word in any sort of order etc.

I thought I would be able to use parenthesis to replace the sqaure brackets, but this didn't work.

Here is my attempt:

my @strings = ("abcZZZabc","abcHOMEabc","abcYYYabc");
foreach (@strings) {
     if ($_ =~ /abc(^HOME)abc/) { 
          print "$_ = Match (Does not contain HOME)\n"; 
     }
     else { 
          print "$_ = No Match (Contains HOME)\n"; 
     }
}

I am wondering if anybody could help me produce a working regular expression similar to /abc(^HOME)abc/.

Thanks alot,

Chris

 

[prex1]

Well, that's simple, so I must assume you have more unspecified requirements. To check (case sensitively) whether 'HOME' is anywhere in your string ([tt]index[/tt] is faster than a regex)

if(index($_,'HOME')>-1){
  print"$_ = No match (Contains HOME)\n"; 
}

If you want to insure that 'HOME' is preceded by at least 3 chars

if(index($_,'HOME')>2){
  print"$_ = No match (Contains HOME after 3rd char)\n"; 
}

If you want to insure that 'HOME' is preceded by at least 3 word chars AND followed by at least 3

if(/\w{3,}?HOME\w{3,}/){
  print"$_ = No match (Contains HOME in the middle)\n"; 
}

Of course many other variations are possible, it all depends on your requirements.

Franco

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