Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site uwvax.ARPA
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!harpo!seismo!uwvax!anderson
From: anderson@uwvax.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Comment recognition in Lex, again
Message-ID: <245@uwvax.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 3-May-84 18:41:08 EDT
Article-I.D.: uwvax.245
Posted: Thu May  3 18:41:08 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 4-May-84 05:42:51 EDT
Organization: U of Wisconsin CS Dept
Lines: 20

<>
I have received several replies to my request for a lex expression
to recognize /* ... */ comments.  The only one that works (sent in
by Jim Hogue) is

"/*"([^*]*"*"*"*"[^/*])*[^*]*"*"*"*/"

which I can't claim to fully understand.  Nor do I understand why my
original,  "/*"([^*]|("*"/[^/]))*"*/", doesn't work.  The idea is that
each character in the string between /* and */ can either be something
other than *, or * followed by something other than /.

Can anyone come up with an expression simpler than Hogue's that works?
By "works", I mean put it in a real "lex" program, as in:

(your expr)	printf("recognized (%s)\n",yytext);

and try it on inputs such as /***/, /*/*/, etc.

-- David Anderson (uwvax!anderson)