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From: pete@violet.berkeley.edu (Pete Goodeve)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: Pipes
Message-ID: <1990Nov12.211929.21081@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: 12 Nov 90 21:19:29 GMT
References: <99.273647DB@myamiga.UUCP> <1990Nov8.173836.19620@agora.uucp> <7594.273e8c18@jetson.uh.edu>
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In  <7594.273e8c18@jetson.uh.edu> (12 Nov),
Jason L. Tibbitts III (honp9@jetson.uh.edu) writes:
>
> It is required that the '|' used as logical-or be enclosed with its arguments
> in parenthesis.  In some cases, the usual AmigaDos commands will accept the OR
> symbol without parenthesis, but this is not consistent with the spec.

Sorry, but the spec does NOT say that. The '|' simply divides the current
character-group into two alternatives, whatever that group may be.
Parentheses delimit INNER groups, but the outermost group is just the
string itself. So this is perfectly OK:

        copy thisfile|thatfile|the_other to df0:

It's probably worthwhile giving the original reference for the algorithm
again (though 2.0 has now extended it considerably):

    Martin Richards, "A Compact Function for Regular Expression
    Pattern Matching"
    [Software--Practice and Experience, vol 9 (1979) 527-534]

>
> Do the pattern-matching functions in 2.0 require the parenthesis grouping?
... I hope not!

                                            -- Pete --