Re: Inconsistent regexp matching when using quantifiers?

From: Dean (dean_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-05-13 11:44:17

Just a correction regarding an earlier statement I made regarding 
searching for a{1}b.  I said:

> It seems to me that when the code finds more than 1 "a", it should 
> either:
> 
> 1) skip past all subsequent "a"s before starting the scan again.  
> This would cause "a{1}b" to be found in "ab" but 
> not "aab", "aaab", "aaaab", etc.  This would be very "greedy". :-)
> 
> Or:
> 
> 2) restart the scan 1 character after where the previous scan 
> started.  This would cause "a{1}b" to be found 
> in "ab", "aab", "aaab", "aaaab", etc.
> 
> FWIW, I'm told that the regex searcher in the .NET Framework 
exhibits 
> behavior #1.

I misunderstood what I was told about the .NET Framework regexp 
implementation.  It exhibits behavior #2 above.  So, boost::regexp 
will behave the same as .NET Framework regexp (and probably most 
other regexp implementations) once it is fixed.

Cheers,

--Dean