=head1 The Guide
+This page assumes you already know things, like what a "pattern" is, and
+the basic syntax of using them. If you don't, see L<perlretut>.
+
=head2 Simple word matching
The simplest regex is simply a word, or more generally, a string of
"That hat is red" =~ /hat/; # matches 'hat' in 'That'
Not all characters can be used 'as is' in a match. Some characters,
-called B<metacharacters>, are reserved for use in regex notation.
-The metacharacters are
+called B<metacharacters>, are considered special, and reserved for use
+in regex notation. The metacharacters are
{}[]()^$.|*+?\
-A metacharacter can be matched by putting a backslash before it:
+A metacharacter can be matched literally by putting a backslash before
+it:
"2+2=4" =~ /2+2/; # doesn't match, + is a metacharacter
"2+2=4" =~ /2\+2/; # matches, \+ is treated like an ordinary +
In the last regex, the forward slash C<'/'> is also backslashed,
because it is used to delimit the regex.
+Most of the metacharacters aren't always special, and other characters
+(such as the ones delimitting the pattern) become special under various
+circumstances. This can be confusing and lead to unexpected results.
+L<S<C<use re 'strict'>>|re/'strict' mode> can notify you of potential
+pitfalls.
+
Non-printable ASCII characters are represented by B<escape sequences>.
Common examples are C<\t> for a tab, C<\n> for a newline, and C<\r>
for a carriage return. Arbitrary bytes are represented by octal
e.g., C<\x1B>:
"1000\t2000" =~ m(0\t2) # matches
- "cat" =~ /\143\x61\x74/ # matches in ASCII, but
+ "cat" =~ /\143\x61\x74/ # matches in ASCII, but
# a weird way to spell cat
Regexes are treated mostly as double-quoted strings, so variable
A B<character class> allows a set of possible characters, rather than
just a single character, to match at a particular point in a regex.
-Character classes are denoted by brackets C<[...]>, with the set of
-characters to be possibly matched inside. Here are some examples:
+There are a number of different types of character classes, but usually
+when people use this term, they are referring to the type described in
+this section, which are technically called "Bracketed character
+classes", because they are denoted by brackets C<[...]>, with the set of
+characters to be possibly matched inside. But we'll drop the "bracketed"
+below to correspond with common usage. Here are some examples of
+(bracketed) character classes:
/cat/; # matches 'cat'
/[bcr]at/; # matches 'bat', 'cat', or 'rat'
In the last example, the end of the string is considered a word
boundary.
+For natural language processing (so that, for example, apostrophes are
+included in words), use instead C<\b{wb}>
+
+ "don't" =~ / .+? \b{wb} /x; # matches the whole string
+
=head2 Matching this or that
We can match different character strings with the B<alternation>
There are a few more things you might want to know about matching
operators.
-The global modifier C<//g> allows the matching operator to match
+The global modifier C</g> allows the matching operator to match
within a string as many times as possible. In scalar context,
-successive matches against a string will have C<//g> jump from match
+successive matches against a string will have C</g> jump from match
to match, keeping track of position in the string as it goes along.
You can get or set the position with the C<pos()> function.
For example,
A failed match or changing the target string resets the position. If
you don't want the position reset after failure to match, add the
-C<//c>, as in C</regex/gc>.
+C</c>, as in C</regex/gc>.
-In list context, C<//g> returns a list of matched groupings, or if
+In list context, C</g> returns a list of matched groupings, or if
there are no groupings, a list of matches to the whole regex. So
@words = ($x =~ /(\w+)/g); # matches,
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