Kimmo Jaskari <kimmo(_at_)alcom(_dot_)aland(_dot_)fi> writes:
On Mon, 16 Nov 1998, era eriksson wrote:
> Ok, I need to match a line that can basically start with anything
> from one word to 6, but always ends the same way. Thus far I've been
> using .* even though that for some reason is not the way to do it (yes,
> when it comes to procmail recipes I'm of the steal, cut and paste school)
You mean like this?
WORD="[a-z']+\\>+"
:0:
* $ ^$WORD($WORD($WORD($WORD($WORD($WORD)?)?)?)?)?\>+same thing as alway
s
action
This is untested. (For text in a Nordic language, you should probably
add some characters with nice diacritics to the WORD definition, and
perhaps even take out the apostrophe.)
Thanks; perhaps even too specific since I just used the 1-6 to illustrate
that it could be any text at all basically, but that the line always
ended the same way. I just wondered how are you going to match a line
that can start with anything but end with something specific without
resorting to .*
Simple: don't use '^' to anchor the regexp to the begining of the line,
so that it [the regexp] will match starting somewhere in the middle of
line:
:0
* ()\<same thing as always$
...
Note that the above regexp would match the line
same thing as always
As \< will match the newline that ended the previous line.
Philip Guenther