I asked in the bug-gawk mailing list (see
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gawk/2024-08/msg00026.html)
if/when GNU awk would support the `.*?` ERE construct described in the
latest POSIX spec
(https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9799919799/basedefs/V1_chap09.html#tag_09_04_06)
as:
----
Each of the duplication symbols ('+', '*', '?', and intervals) can be
suffixed by the repetition modifier '?' (<question-mark>), in which case
matching behavior for that repetition shall be changed from the leftmost
longest possible match to the leftmost shortest possible match,
including the null match (see A.9 Regular Expressions ). For example,
the ERE ".*c" matches up to and including the last character ('c') in
the string "abc abc", whereas the ERE ".*?c" matches up to and including
the first character 'c', the third character in the string.
----
and was told:
----
Support for this feature can't happen unless and until GNU regex and GNU
dfa, which are both part of Gnulib, support it. So you might consider
asking on the bug-gnulib list what their plans are for it.
----
so - what are the plans, if any, for supporting that functionality?
Regards,
Ed Morton
