Well, ok, one "language" is just a subset of the other (guess I didn't
communicate that), but they are still distinct and still cause for
concern.
However, I think that if we're going to write this DFA at all, then the
user SHOULD have the choice of using it for normal regex matchs, by
specifying a specific flag (my choice was 'd'). Alternatively, the person
should be able to use the regular regex engine for the line-end matchs if
he wants expressiveness at the expense of speed.
Dave
On Thu, 17 Aug 2000, Bart Lateur wrote:
> On Wed, 16 Aug 2000 07:39:33 -0700 (PDT), Dave Storrs wrote:
>
> > The idea of having two different regex "languages" in Perl makes
> >me very, very nervous. Potential for confusion
>
> It should.
>
> However, I was talking about two different rgex implementations, not two
> different languages. I would make the notation the same for both.
> Except: there are things that you generally can't do with a DFA, such as
> capturing submatches, and repeated matches like
>
> /(['"]).*?\1/
>
> (--> the "\1"). I think that's about it.
>
> And the DFA would only be used for input line terminator scans. No user
> choice.
>
> --
> Bart.
>
