Types of Lookaround and examples

4 Types of Lookaround

Positive Lookbehind (?<=......) successful if can match to the left

Negative Lookbehind (?<!......) successful if can not match to the left

Positive Lookahead (?=......) successful if can match to the right

Negative Lookahead (?!......) successful if can not match to the right

Examples

$string = "Jeffery is a boy that start with Jeffs";

$string =~ s/\bJeff(?=s\b)/Jeff'/g;

=> The results is : Jeffery is a boy that start with Jeff's

$string = "Jefferry Tomson";

$string =~ s/(?=Jefferry)Jeff/J/; #case 1

$string =~ s/Jeff(?=erry)/J/; # case 2

=> For both cases the Result is : Jerry Tomson

$text = "The numbers are 298444215 and 123234567";

$text =~ s/(?<=\d)(?=(\d\d\d)+(?!\w))/,/g; # case 1

$text =~ s/(?<=\d)(?=(\d\d\d)+(?!\d))/,/g; # case 2

$text =~ s/(\d)(?=(\d\d\d)+(?!\d))/$1,/g;#case 3

=> For all cases the result is : The numbers are 298,444,215 and 123,234,567

$text = "The numbers are 298444215 and 123234567";

$text =~ s/(\d)((\d\d\d)+\b)/$1,$2/g;#no look behind and no lookahead

print $text;#result The numbers are 298,444215 and 123,234567

To have the result : The numbers are 298,444,215 and 123,234,567 we have to do the following:

$text = "The numbers are 298444215 and 123234567";

while ($text =~ s/(\d)((\d\d\d)+\b)/$1,$2/g)

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