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Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!mimsy!aplcen!osiris!mjr
From: mjr@osiris.UUCP (Marcus J. Ranum)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: BSD re_comp() and re_exec() problem
Message-ID: <1358@osiris.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 24-Aug-87 22:38:57 EDT
Article-I.D.: osiris.1358
Posted: Mon Aug 24 22:38:57 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 26-Aug-87 01:51:28 EDT
Organization: The Bavarian Illuminati, Inc.
Lines: 41
Keywords: is it stupid || am I?


	I've been playing with the BSD regexp libary routines. I had the same
experience with regexp.h, too. Anyhow:

expressions like: "aplcen!mj*" and even "aplcen!mj." compile fine using
re_comp() and when I try a re_exec() against a string like "aplcen!mjr"
they DON'T MATCH if I've already compiled one or more re's. Now, the ed(1)
manpage tells me I should get at least something out of that. About the
only thing that DID re_exec() okay against my compiled string was "mjr"
which DID match. Anyone seen this before ??

I tried the following:

extern char *re_comp();

main()
{
	char *fp = "aplcen!mjr";
	char *bp = "aplcen!*";
	char *qp = "*!*";
	char *ap;

	if(ap = re_comp(bp)) {
		printf("err - %s\n",ap); exit(1);
	} else {
		if(re_exec(fp))
			printf("match one!\n");
	}
	if(ap = re_comp(qp)) {
		printf("err - %s\n",ap); exit(1);
	} else {
		if(re_exec(fp))
			printf("match two!\n");
	}
exit(0);
}
-- 
If they think you're crude, go technical; if they think you're technical,
go crude. I'm a very technical boy. So I get as crude as possible. These
days, though, you have to be pretty technical before you can even aspire
to crudeness...			         -Johnny Mnemonic