The combination of C<//g> and C<\G> allows us to process the string a
bit at a time and use arbitrary Perl logic to decide what to do next.
+Currently, the C<\G> anchor is only fully supported when used to anchor
+to the start of the pattern.
C<\G> is also invaluable in processing fixed length records with
regexps. Suppose we have a snippet of coding region DNA, encoded as
The last regexp matches, but is dangerous because the string
I<character> position is no longer synchronized to the string I<byte>
position. This generates the warning 'Malformed UTF-8
-character'. C<\C> is best used for matching the binary data in strings
+character'. The C<\C> is best used for matching the binary data in strings
with binary data intermixed with Unicode characters.
Let us now discuss the rest of the character classes. Just as with
IsPrint /^([LMNPS]|Co|Zs)/
IsPunct /^P/
IsSpace /^Z/ || ($code =~ /^(0009|000A|000B|000C|000D)$/
- IsSpacePerl /^Z/ || ($code =~ /^(0009|000A|000C|000D)$/
+ IsSpacePerl /^Z/ || ($code =~ /^(0009|000A|000C|000D|0085|2028|2029)$/
IsUpper /^L[ut]/
IsWord /^[LMN]/ || $code eq "005F"
IsXDigit $code =~ /^00(3[0-9]|[46][1-6])$/
The Unicode has also been separated into various sets of charaters
which you can test with C<\p{In...}> (in) and C<\P{In...}> (not in),
-for example C<\p{InLatin}>, C<\p{InGreek}>, or C<\P{InKatakana}>.
+for example C<\p{Latin}>, C<\p{Greek}>, or C<\P{Katakana}>.
For the full list see L<perlunicode>.
C<\X> is an abbreviation for a character class sequence that includes
character classes. To negate a POSIX class, put a C<^> in front of
the name, so that, e.g., C<[:^digit:]> corresponds to C<\D> and under
C<utf8>, C<\P{IsDigit}>. The Unicode and POSIX character classes can
-be used just like C<\d>, both inside and outside of character classes:
+be used just like C<\d>, with the exception that POSIX character
+classes can only be used inside of a character class:
/\s+[abc[:digit:]xyz]\s*/; # match a,b,c,x,y,z, or a digit
- /^=item\s[:digit:]/; # match '=item',
+ /^=item\s[[:digit:]]/; # match '=item',
# followed by a space and a digit
use charnames ":full";
/\s+[abc\p{IsDigit}xyz]\s+/; # match a,b,c,x,y,z, or a digit
$x =~ /foo(?!baz)/; # matches, 'baz' doesn't follow 'foo'
$x =~ /(?<!\s)foo/; # matches, there is no \s before 'foo'
+The C<\C> is unsupported in lookbehind, because the already
+treacherous definition of C<\C> would become even more so
+when going backwards.
+
=head2 Using independent subexpressions to prevent backtracking
The last few extended patterns in this tutorial are experimental as of