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Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!mcvax!boring!guido
From: guido@boring.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.wanted.sources
Subject: Re: Magic string pattern matching (as in vi)
Message-ID: <6323@boring.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 17-Feb-85 14:02:54 EST
Article-I.D.: boring.6323
Posted: Sun Feb 17 14:02:54 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 21-Feb-85 03:17:58 EST
References: <152@sdcc13.UUCP>
Reply-To: guido@boring.UUCP (Guido van Rossum)
Organization: "Stamp Out BASIC" Committee, CWI, Amsterdam
Lines: 21
Summary: 
Apparently-To: rnews@mcvax.LOCAL

Sorry, mail couldn't reach you, so I post this to the net (also for general
interest).

Some time ago I posted a similar question to the net.  (It seems to reappear
at regular intervals. :-)  There are various forms of "regular expression
matchers" (probably the best name in a Unix context) in the public domain.
If you have access to a BSD unix version, its "regex(3)" subroutines are
in the public domain (said its author Mark Horton), so you can just use its
source.  (NB System 5's regex(3) is *not* p.d.!!!)
About the same thing is in (also BSD) "more(1)", which is also p.d. (and also
written by Mark Horton).
Other public domain versions occur in James Gosling's Emacs, and in the famous
news reading program "rn" by Larry Wall (who started with Gosling's code).
Finally, there seems to be one available in Richard Stallman's "GNU" (a p.d.
version of Unix, I don't know how much of it is available).
There may also be a (printed) version in Kernighan&Pike.
Mail me for more details -- I don't have a summary readily available but I
can send you all responses I got.

	Guido van Rossum, "Stamp Out BASIC" Committee, CWI, Amsterdam
	guido@mcvax.UUCP