Question

For the given string example: <a><b><c><d><e><f><g>
I’d like to write an expression that will repeatedly match the first 5 <(?)> tokens and put them in $1, $2, $3, $4 and $5.

The naive implementation would be of course: /<(?)><(?)><(?)><(?)><(?)>/

But back in the day I remember doing something like /(<(?)>:5)/ instead.

I’m having a hard time finding this syntax.

Can anyone help?

Thanks.

Answer 1

perl -wE '$_="<a><b><c><d><e><f><g>"; say /<(.)>/g;'

Will give all the matches. It’s just a matter of getting a slice:

my @tokens = (/<(.)>/g)[0 .. 4];