Perl regex meaning

Question

I'm writing a python script using regex expressions and I found what is needed in perl, but as I am not strong in perl I don't clearly understand what is written. Here is the code:

'\\b' . $2 .'\\b.{0,15}' . $3 . '[^\\d]{0,5}' . $4 . ((defined $5) ? '[^\\d]{0,5}' . $5 : ''

The problem is mainly in the of line where it checks if $5 is defined. Can you please help me undertand this line ?

You have an unmatched bracket at the ternary (?:) expression — Peter R
– Peter R, Commented Sep 3, 2014 at 13:03

Miller · Accepted Answer · 2014-09-04 06:28:08Z

4

That is the Conditional Operator:

(defined $5) ? '[^\\d]{0,5}' . $5 : ''
^^^^^^^^^^^^   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^   ^^
 condition      take this if true   take this if false

will return '[^\\d]{0,5}' . $5 if $5 is defined, empty string otherwise.

edited Sep 4, 2014 at 6:28

Miller

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answered Sep 3, 2014 at 8:49

mpapec

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