Question

Perl RegEx Question

Asked by: travisbickle34

Hi,

I have some data in a string which looks something like this:

>gavin1
score = 10, evalue = 1000000
length = 50, width = 100
Alignment = plus / minus
>gavin2
score = 20, evalue = 2000000
length = 100, width = 200
Alignment = plus / minus
>gavin 3
score = 60, evalue = 300000
length = 2, width = 50
Alignment = plus / plus

Basically I want to be able to quickly pull out just the last record (the one that ends plus / plus).
Is there any way I can get a regex to read from the end of the string and not the beginning?

As it stands, if I try a regex like (/>.*?plus\s\/\splus/s)  it pulls out all 3 entries (since it starts reading from the beginning of the string and expands outwards).  Any tips on how I can do this without splitting into arrays etc....?

Cheers in advance,

tb34

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Asked On
2005-05-05 at 09:41:51ID21414060
Tags

regex

,

perl

,

minus

Topic

Perl Programming Language

Participating Experts
2
Points
125
Comments
8

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Answers

 

by: geotigerPosted on 2005-05-05 at 10:30:07ID: 13938074

Here it is :

#!/usr/local/bin/perl
#
my $input = <<EoS;
>gavin1
score = 10, evalue = 1000000
length = 50, width = 100
Alignment = plus / minus
>gavin2
score = 20, evalue = 2000000
length = 100, width = 200
Alignment = plus / minus
>gavin 3
score = 60, evalue = 300000
length = 2, width = 50
Alignment = plus / plus
EoS

my $re = qr/>[^>]*plus\s*\/\s*plus\s*/si;
# print $input;
print "RE = $re\n";

local $\;
my @a = ($input =~ /$re/sg);

for my $i (0..$#a) {
   print $a[$i];
}

> ./tst87pat.pl
RE = (?si-xm:>[^>]*plus\s*/\s*plus\s*)
>gavin 3
score = 60, evalue = 300000
length = 2, width = 50
Alignment = plus / plus

 

by: inq123Posted on 2005-05-05 at 12:35:13ID: 13939340

Just one line of code suffice (not counting the lines in your input string):

my $input = <<"END";
>gavin1
score = 10, evalue = 1000000
length = 50, width = 100
Alignment = plus / minus
>gavin2
score = 20, evalue = 2000000
length = 100, width = 200
Alignment = plus / minus
>gavin 3
score = 60, evalue = 300000
length = 2, width = 50
Alignment = plus / plus
END

print "this is the record you need:\n$1\n" if($input =~ /(>[^>]+plus\s\/\splus)/);

if you know this is always the last record, then /(>[^>]+)$/ would do.

 

by: travisbickle34Posted on 2005-05-06 at 01:15:02ID: 13943297

Cheers ing123 - That works perfectly.

Any chance of a brief explanation of how that regex works?  I would like to know for the future!

tb34

 

by: geotigerPosted on 2005-05-06 at 05:12:13ID: 13944224


Did I get the regular expression correct? I think it deserve some credits!

The other lines are just for inputing and displaying information.

 

by: travisbickle34Posted on 2005-05-06 at 05:47:48ID: 13944409

To be honest I only tested the more concise version.

Apologies - perhaps a moderator can do a points split or something?

tb34

 

by: travisbickle34Posted on 2005-05-06 at 06:33:20ID: 13944739

Done.

Cheers guys.

tb34

 

by: inq123Posted on 2005-05-06 at 07:53:27ID: 13945070

OK, some explanation (I assume you know the very basics):

/(>[^>]+plus\s\/\splus)/
[^>] means any character that is not '>'
This regex works because it gets any section that ends with plus / plus.  One might tinker with the \s in the regex to add \s* just in case you want to capture plus/plus and plus     /      plus.

/(>[^>]+)$/
$ at end of regex means match end of string.  This one works because it always gets the last section (not necessarily plus / plus).

One more comment, which I agree that geotiger's regex works, I don't think his answer is a good answer (no offense, just purely from a technical aspect).  Now here's why:

my $re = qr/>[^>]*plus\s*\/\s*plus\s*/si;

1. qr// is unnecessary because it only matters when you interpolate variables.
2. /s is not necessary either since [^>] includes \n, which is proven in my working solutions.

Then in $input =~ /$re/sg, there's /s again, and it's unecessary again.

The good thing about his answer is that it uses /g to capature all 'plus / plus' sections, but it does not seem to be necessary (and even incorrect) since you specified that you just wanted the last plus / plus section in your question, not all of them or first of them or ...

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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