Title	:Pattern matching with "//"
	Author	:	SS
	Class	:	NavMar
	Content	:


<P>

	<B>Pattern matching with "//" </B>
<P>
<UL>

<LI><A HREF="/Authoring/Languages/Perl/">Perl </A> invokes a
	 powerful tool for pattern matching that
     gives the program great flexibility in controlling matches.
     In Perl, a string is matched by placing it between two
     slashes as follows: 

<P>

<PRE>
/[pattern_to_match]/ 
</PRE>

<P>

	<LI>Thus, /eric/ matches for the string "eric". You may also
	     match according to whole classes of characters using the
	     square brackets ([]). The pattern match will then match
	     against any of the characters in the class. For example, to
	     match for any single even numbered digit, you could use
	     the following match: 

<P>

<PRE>
/[02468]/ 
</PRE>

<P>

	<LI>For classes including an entire range of characters, you
	     may use the dash (-) to represent the list. Thus, the
	     following matches any single lower case letter in the
	     alphabet: 

<P>

<PRE>
/[a-z]/ 
</PRE>

<P>

<LI>Likewise, you may use the caret (^) character within the
     square brackets to match every character that is "not"
     in the class. The following matches any single character
     that is not a digit. 

<P>

<PRE>
/[^0-9]/ 
</PRE>

</UL>
<P>
	<H3>Additional Resources:</H3>
<UL>
	<LI><A HREF="/Authoring/Languages/Perl/">Perl </A>
	<LI><A HREF="/Authoring/Languages/Perl/Resources.html">Perl Resources </A>
</UL>


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