Perl::...nything(3pm)

okay so bestie, welcome to the Perl::...nything(3pm) page from the User Contributed Perl Documentation 💖 we are diving in, and yes it’s giving very specific regex energy ✨

🌸 NAME 🌸

Perl::Critic::Policy::RegularExpressions::RequireDotMatchAnything — always use the /s modifier with regular expressions. periodt 💅

🦋 AFFILIATION 🦋

This Policy is part of the core Perl::Critic distribution. iconic, honestly 👑

🎀 DESCRIPTION 🎀

okay so when someone asks what . means in a regular expression, most people will say it matches any character — and that is not true, bestie 😭 it’s actually shorthand for [^\n]. using the s modifier makes . act like people expect it to 💫

my $match = m< foo.bar >xm;  # not ok
my $match = m< foo.bar >xms; # ok

see? the s is doing the lord’s work 🙏

✨ CONFIGURATION ✨

This Policy is not configurable except for the standard options. that’s it, that’s the config section 🎀

💜 NOTES 💜

be cautious about slapping modifier flags onto existing regular expressions, because they can drastically alter their meaning 😳 seriously, do not just vibe-check your way through regex flags. See http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=484238 for an interesting discussion on the effects of blindly modifying regular expression flags 👀

🫶 AUTHOR 🫶

Jeffrey Ryan Thalhammer — <jeff@imaginative-software.com> 💌

🌈 COPYRIGHT 🌈

Copyright (c) 2005-2011 Imaginative Software Systems. All rights reserved.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. The full text of this license can be found in the LICENSE file included with this module. slay, legal bestie 💅

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and that’s the whole page, bestie 🫶 the footer says perl v5.42.0, dated 2024-10-23, and this manual is Perl::...nything(3pm). mwah 💋