RFC 110 (v2) counting matches

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=head1	TITLE

counting matches

=head1 VERSION

	Maintainer: Richard Proctor <[email protected]>
	Date: 16 Aug 2000
	Last Modified: 27 Aug 2000
	Version: 2
	Mailing List: [email protected]
	Number: 110

=head1 ABSTRACT

Provide a simple way of giving a count of matches of a pattern.

=head1 CHANGES

Version 2 of this RFC redirects discussion of this topic to
[email protected].

=head1 DESCRIPTION

Have you ever wanted to count the number of matches of a patten?  s///g 
returns the number of matches it finds.  m//g just returns 1 for matching.
Counts can be made using s//$&/g but this is wastefull, or by putting some 
counting loop round a m//g.  But this all seams rather messy. 

m//gt would be defined to do the match, and return the count of matches, this 
leaves all existing uses consistent and unaffected.  /t is suggested for
"counT", as /c is already taken.  Using /t without /g would be result in
only 0 or 1 being returned, which is nearly the existing syntax.

(Note I am only on the announce list at present as I am suffering
from negative free time).

=head1 IMPLENTATION

No idea

=head1 REFERENCES

I brought this up on p5p a couple of years ago, but it was lost in the noise...