How to refactor regex in Perl

Question

I have the following sentences: ``` text GGG-33 text text some other. text text text some other other. ``` What I want to do is to create a single regular expression (regex) that can match the two sentences above. Note that the only differing pattern in the above sentences are the middle factor `` and ``. I'm stucked with the current attempt, which matched them in two redundant regex. What's the right way to do it? ``` use Data::Dumper; @sent = ("text GGG-33 text text some other.", " text text text some other other."); foreach $sent (@sent) { if ( $sent =~ /.*.*.*.*/gi ) { print "$sent "; } elsif( $sent =~ /.*.*.*/gi ) { print "$sent "; } } ``` Live demo

Accepted Answer

`(?:xxx|yyy)\s*\s*(?:xxx|yyy)\s*(?:|)\s*(?:xxxx|yyy)\s*` Maybe this regexp not optimized, but it work. Ok, what I do here: First Magic: ``` (?:EXPR) - Capture group NOT CAPTURED # helps to avoid any capturing ``` Second Magic: ``` (a|b|c) - choose metasymbol in work. I would choose between or or ``` Third Magic: Here Rubular work Generalization: ``` .+?\s*\s*.+?\s*(?:|)\s*.+?\s*.+ ``` And your example: Here Rubular work too Reject string: ``` .+?\s*\s*[^$$]+?\s*(?:|)\s*[^$$]+?\s*.+ ``` Fourth Magic: ``` [^SYMBOLS] - Class of symbols. <^> At the beginning mean 'I DON'T want match them'. ``` Here Example: ``` [abc]{1} - I will match or or [^abc]{1} - I will NOT match or or ``` Here Rubular work again

How to refactor regex in Perl

Solution

Problem