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Xicheng Jia wrote:
> [...]
> you want to match anything except those matching the qr//
> expression???? so you might want to try the following:
>
> my $RE = qr/something here/;
>
> if ($v =~ /^(??!$RE).)*$/) {
> # any string $v that doesnot match $RE
> }
>
> (untested)
> Xicheng
>

Well, I tested it, and it seems pretty darn good, and just like Ronny, I
might end up using this in my programs if I can figure out how it works.
Thanks Xicheng.

On 31 May 2006, wrote:

> You exactly got the point: I want the user to rewrite the
> Pattern. The question is, how to write a *negated* pattern using
> Perl RE Syntax?

You can do it for some cases, but because of limitations on memory and
CPU cycles, most complex regexes can't be inverted in a reasonable
amount of time. When there's code inside, it gets even worse.

Look at the book "Higher-Order Perl" by Mark-Jason Dominus. It has a
long section on finding all the strings that can match a given regular
expression; if you read it carefully you'll see why inverting a
regular expression is generally a hard problem, just as producing all
the strings that match it.

Note also that if security is a concern, giving users regexp access is
equivalent to letting them run any code due to the code escapes
possible in Perl's regex interpreter. It may be simpler to give the
users a limited language with a NOT operator. Parse::RecDescent has
some good examples of this kind of parser in the distribution. The
users may also prefer this to the raw power of regexps, and it's what
I would do for a production system.

> Of course, one hack for my original problem would be to "invent" a
> special character (say, exclamation mark) which is allowed to be at
> the very start of the expession, and just has the meaning "pattern
> has negated meaning".

Yes That would be easiest.

>> I honestly don't see a reason why you shouldn't provide a -v option,
>
> The reason is because I simplified the problem very much so to make
> it better feasible to discuss here. The interesting point for me is
> not finding out whether the negation effect can be done solely
> within the pattern, or has to be "moved outside" to the distinction
> between =~ and !~, or if/unless construct.

It should be moved outside, so you can go on to finish the project

Ted

Xicheng Jia wrote:

> my $RE = qr/something here/;
>
> if ($v =~ /^(??!$RE).)*$/) {
> # any string $v that doesnot match $RE
> }
>

I've not benchmarked it but I'd suspect that's less efficient than the
usual answer[1] the OP would have found if he'd been bothered to type
"negate regex" into a Usenet search engine on this newsgroup.

[1] The on ska gave.

Brian McCauley wrote:
> Xicheng Jia wrote:
>
> > my $RE = qr/something here/;
> >
> > if ($v =~ /^(??!$RE).)*$/) {
> > # any string $v that doesnot match $RE
> > }
> >
>
> I've not benchmarked it but I'd suspect that's less efficient than the
> usual answer[1] the OP would have found if he'd been bothered to type
> "negate regex" into a Usenet search engine on this newsgroup.

Here is an old post from Tom Christensen which might best address this
problem:

http://groups.google.com/group/comp....f7898218075b5b

while the notion of (??!$RE).)* to match anything except $RE(as far
as I can know) is from Jeffery's book "Mastering Regular Expression".

HTH,
Xicheng

> I've not benchmarked it but I'd suspect that's less efficient than the
> usual answer[1] the OP would have found if he'd been bothered to type
> "negate regex" into a Usenet search engine on this newsgroup.

Point taken!

Ronald

On 31 May 2006, wrote:

Brian McCauley wrote: > Xicheng Jia wrote: >
>>> my $RE = qr/something here/;
>>>
>>> if ($v =~ /^(??!$RE).)*$/) {
>>> # any string $v that doesnot match $RE
>>> }
>>>
>>
>> I've not benchmarked it but I'd suspect that's less efficient than the
>> usual answer[1] the OP would have found if he'd been bothered to type
>> "negate regex" into a Usenet search engine on this newsgroup.
>
> Here is an old post from Tom Christensen which might best address this
> problem:
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/comp....f7898218075b5b
>
> while the notion of (??!$RE).)* to match anything except $RE(as far
> as I can know) is from Jeffery's book "Mastering Regular Expression".

This post does not mention that negating some regexes is
computationally prohibitive, and code escapes are a problem. Also,
the "Higher-Order Perl" book I mentioned came out after that post
(1999), and has some very interesting information in the chapter on
generating all the possible strings a regex can match. There's
security considerations when you allow a user to provide you with a
regex. None of those things is answered by a naive Usenet search.

Furthermore, the real question was "why doesn't the OP want a -v flag?
How can he simulate it instead?" and not "how to negate a regex."
Usually that's the case when people ask for negating a regex, btw.

Ted