Help with regular expression please?

[Billy N. Patton]

Here is the simplified code I have attempted. It failed me by finding 31ZB1 to be the same as 31ZB11

__BEGIN__

$focusRule = '31ZB1';
# match v v v v
@l = ( qw ( 31ZA1 31ZB1 31ZB11 31ZB15 175A2 31ZU7 31ZB 31ZB1a 31ZB1b ));
# n = number

# a = alpha char

# + is one or more

# ? one or more may or may not be there

# the rule names are built

# n+a+n?a?n?

# so the possible correect permutations are

# n+a+

# n+a+n+

# n+a+n+a+

# n+a+n+a+n+

# 31ZB1 31ZB 31ZB1a 31ZB1b1 all these should match $focusRule

# 31ZB1 and 31ZB11 are different

# I also need to set $focusRule to '31ZB' and have it find the same set.

$found = 0;
foreach $rule (@l ) {
my $a1 = ($rule =~ /^$focusRule[abc123]?$|,$focusRule[abc123]/) ? 1 : 0;
my $a2 = ($focusRule =~ /^$rule[abc123]?/) ? 1 : 0;
print "focusRule = '$focusRule' , rule = '$rule', a1 = $a1 , a2 = $a2\n";
if ($a1 || $a2) {
print "focusRule = '$focusRule' matches '$rule'\n";
$found++;
}
}
print "found = $found\nshould have found 4";


__END__

 

[Brian McCauley]

# n = number

# a = alpha char

# + is one or more

# ? one or more may or may not be there

You appear to be saying you are inventing your own simple regex
grammar

So the translation from your grammar to Perl's

my %translate_pattern_token = (
'n' => '\d'
'a' => '[[:alpha:]]'
'+' => '+'
'?' => '*'
);

So if a $rule is a pattern in your notation you could convert it to a
Perl regex thus...

my $regex = join '', map { $translate_pattern_token{$_} } split //,
$rule;

# E&OE

# the rule names are built

OK now you've lost me. What did you mean by that?