Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!convex!news
From: tchrist@convex.COM (Tom Christiansen)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Re: Frequently Asked Questions about Perl - with Answers [Monthly posting]
Message-ID: <1991Mar08.131601.23812@convex.com>
Date: 8 Mar 91 13:16:01 GMT
References: <1991Mar08.025232.21050@convex.com> <EMV.91Mar7231753@poe.aa.ox.com>
Sender: news@convex.com (news access account)
Reply-To: tchrist@convex.COM (Tom Christiansen)
Organization: CONVEX Software Development, Richardson, TX
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Nntp-Posting-Host: pixel.convex.com

From the keyboard of emv@ox.com (Ed Vielmetti):
:Speaking of which, what's the limits on the number of parentheses that
:a regular expression can have?  I got an unpleasant message
:
:/^(scan)\s+((-(\w*))|)\s*\+(\w*)((s+((||>)(.*)))|)/: too many () in regexp at /u:1/emv/bin/smoke line 167, <> line 1.

Nine.  To accept more, Larry would have to change the code that
recognizes \1 .. \9 and $1 .. .$9.

--tom