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Date: Wed, 28 May 1997 01:43:59 -0700
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From: "Karl M. Hegbloom" <karlheg@inetarena.com>
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To: <xemacs-beta@xemacs.org>
Subject: regex patches from gnu.emacs.sources?
X-Mailer: VM 6.31 under 20.3 XEmacs Lucid (beta2)
X-Face: /Q}=yl}1_v7nP)xXo5XjG8+tl@=uVu7o5u6)f]zN?+<hB!K.m9:[|*p34jVN`O;:XZXVSy>/\R>qDt(t8w!-i{(y0"`jFw^uk8inzO9wXabd'CdjUWfC\GHi:6nO*YC89#-qD>Q4r%9!V"<RYJ=7D#$";q=zML5'!=wvXk^$`6FT=5CMofQX)WUKt0p:OKl.mFOXx/D

 Have you seen the regex patches from gnu.emacs.sources?  I'm running
an XEmacs 20.3-b2 with them applied, and everything works as
advertised.  (I saved a copy, if you like I'll mail them.)

8<----------------------------------------------------------------->8
Here's a patch to implement the following changes in the Emacs regex engine:

 - Shy groups.  "\\(?:a\\)" is like "\\(a\\)" except that the matched string
   is not registered (i.e., grouping without backreferencing).
 - All other "\\(?x...\\)" constructs are rejected (reserved for future
   extensions).
 - Minimal matching. "a*?" and "a+?" and "a??" perform shortest-possible
   matching (compare with "a*" and "a+" and "a?", respectively, which perform
   longest-possible matching).
 - Other juxtaposing of * + and ? is rejected.  (Previously, "a*?" and "a+?"
   were the same as "a*"; and "a??" was the same as "a?".)
 - Intervals. "a\\{3,5\\}" matches 3 or 5 a's.  (Without this patch, the regex
   engine already implements intervals, but this functionality is not enabled
   for Emacs (the regex engine is used in tools other than Emacs).)

This patch is under consideration for inclusion in the Emacs distribution.
Rms has given a preliminary nod to the syntax changes.
8<----------------------------------------------------------------->8

-- 
Karl M. Hegbloom <karlheg@inetarena.com>
http://www.inetarena.com/~karlheg
Portland, OR  USA
Debian GNU 1.2  Linux 2.1.36 AMD K5 PR-133

