Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!ucsd!ucbvax!iwarp.intel.com!news
From: merlyn@iwarp.intel.com (Randal Schwartz)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Re: Regexps (was Re: Changing the first character of a string.)
Message-ID: <1990Jul5.172424.3279@iwarp.intel.com>
Date: 5 Jul 90 17:24:24 GMT
References: <1990Jul5.135434.11673@uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU>
Sender: news@iwarp.intel.com
Reply-To: merlyn@iwarp.intel.com (Randal Schwartz)
Organization: Stonehenge; netaccess via Intel, Beaverton, Oregon, USA
Lines: 22
In-Reply-To: worley@compass.com (Dale Worley)

In article <1990Jul5.135434.11673@uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU>, worley@compass (Dale Worley) writes:
|    Regexps are well-defined and extremely predicatable about their
|    "leftmost wildcard matches the most possible iterations" behavior.
| 
| OK, where is it written down?  Also, you forgot to mention that |
| attempts to match the left alternative before the right.  (I mention
| that to show that it's not so easy to completely define dynamic
| behavior.)

Say "man egrep" on any sane machine.  Or "man ed" for an even older
reference.

I admit, I don't see any "left alternative before right" stuff in
there.  I guess I've been reading the code too much (the *ultimate*
spec, as any UNIX hacker knows...).

Just another RE hacker,
-- 
/=Randal L. Schwartz, Stonehenge Consulting Services (503)777-0095 ==========\
| on contract to Intel's iWarp project, Beaverton, Oregon, USA, Sol III      |
| merlyn@iwarp.intel.com ...!any-MX-mailer-like-uunet!iwarp.intel.com!merlyn |
\=Cute Quote: "Welcome to Portland, Oregon, home of the California Raisins!"=/