bug#52873: expr unexpected syntax error

[Martin Rixham]

I'm getting an error from the following:

    [martin@fedora ~]$ expr ')' : '.*'
    expr: syntax error: unexpected ')'

There also seems to be a similar problem with:

    expr '(' : '.*'

Here's the version:

    [martin@fedora ~]$ expr --version
    expr (GNU coreutils) 8.32
    Copyright (C) 2020 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
    License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <
https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
    This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
    There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

    Written by Mike Parker, James Youngman, and Paul Eggert.

And a uname for good measure:

    [martin@fedora ~]$ uname -a
    Linux fedora 5.15.7-200.fc35.x86_64 #1 SMP Wed Dec 8 19:00:47 UTC 2021
x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Thanks,

Martin