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							- /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
 
- // Name:        resyntax.h
 
- // Purpose:     topic overview
 
- // Author:      wxWidgets team
 
- // Licence:     wxWindows licence
 
- /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
 
- /**
 
- @page overview_resyntax Regular Expressions
 
- @tableofcontents
 
- A <em>regular expression</em> describes strings of characters. It's a  pattern
 
- that matches certain strings and doesn't match others.
 
- @see wxRegEx
 
- @section overview_resyntax_differentflavors Different Flavors of Regular Expressions
 
- Regular expressions (RE), as defined by POSIX, come in two flavors:
 
- <em>extended regular expressions</em> (ERE) and <em>basic regular
 
- expressions</em> (BRE). EREs are roughly those of the traditional @e egrep,
 
- while BREs are roughly those of the traditional @e ed. This implementation
 
- adds a third flavor: <em>advanced regular expressions</em> (ARE), basically
 
- EREs with some significant extensions.
 
- This manual page primarily describes AREs. BREs mostly exist for backward
 
- compatibility in some old programs. POSIX EREs are almost an exact subset of
 
- AREs. Features of AREs that are not present in EREs will be indicated.
 
- @section overview_resyntax_syntax Regular Expression Syntax
 
- These regular expressions are implemented using the package written by Henry
 
- Spencer, based on the 1003.2 spec and some (not quite all) of the Perl5
 
- extensions (thanks, Henry!).  Much of the description of regular expressions
 
- below is copied verbatim from his manual entry.
 
- An ARE is one or more @e branches, separated by "|", matching anything that
 
- matches any of the branches.
 
- A branch is zero or more @e constraints or @e quantified atoms, concatenated.
 
- It matches a match for the first, followed by a match for the second, etc; an
 
- empty branch matches the empty string.
 
- A quantified atom is an @e atom possibly followed by a single @e quantifier.
 
- Without a quantifier, it matches a match for the atom. The quantifiers, and
 
- what a so-quantified atom matches, are:
 
- @beginTable
 
- @row2col{ <tt>*</tt> ,
 
-     A sequence of 0 or more matches of the atom. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>+</tt> ,
 
-     A sequence of 1 or more matches of the atom. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>?</tt> ,
 
-     A sequence of 0 or 1 matches of the atom. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>{m}</tt> ,
 
-     A sequence of exactly @e m matches of the atom. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>{m\,}</tt> ,
 
-     A sequence of @e m or more matches of the atom. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>{m\,n}</tt> ,
 
-     A sequence of @e m through @e n (inclusive) matches of the atom; @e m may
 
-     not exceed @e n. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>*? +? ?? {m}? {m\,}? {m\,n}?</tt> ,
 
-     @e Non-greedy quantifiers, which match the same possibilities, but prefer
 
-     the smallest number rather than the largest number of matches (see
 
-     @ref overview_resyntax_matching). }
 
- @endTable
 
- The forms using @b { and @b } are known as @e bounds. The numbers @e m and
 
- @e n are unsigned decimal integers with permissible values from 0 to 255
 
- inclusive. An atom is one of:
 
- @beginTable
 
- @row2col{ <tt>(re)</tt> ,
 
-     Where @e re is any regular expression, matches for @e re, with the match
 
-     captured for possible reporting. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>(?:re)</tt> ,
 
-     As previous, but does no reporting (a "non-capturing" set of
 
-     parentheses). }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>()</tt> ,
 
-     Matches an empty string, captured for possible reporting. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>(?:)</tt> ,
 
-     Matches an empty string, without reporting. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>[chars]</tt> ,
 
-     A <em>bracket expression</em>, matching any one of the @e chars (see
 
-     @ref overview_resyntax_bracket for more details). }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>.</tt> ,
 
-     Matches any single character. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>@\k</tt> ,
 
-     Where @e k is a non-alphanumeric character, matches that character taken
 
-     as an ordinary character, e.g. @\@\ matches a backslash character. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>@\c</tt> ,
 
-     Where @e c is alphanumeric (possibly followed by other characters), an
 
-     @e escape (AREs only), see @ref overview_resyntax_escapes below. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>@leftCurly</tt> ,
 
-     When followed by a character other than a digit, matches the left-brace
 
-     character "@leftCurly"; when followed by a digit, it is the beginning of a
 
-     @e bound (see above). }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>x</tt> ,
 
-     Where @e x is a single character with no other significance, matches that
 
-     character. }
 
- @endTable
 
- A @e constraint matches an empty string when specific conditions are met. A
 
- constraint may not be followed by a quantifier. The simple constraints are as
 
- follows; some more constraints are described later, under
 
- @ref overview_resyntax_escapes.
 
- @beginTable
 
- @row2col{ <tt>^</tt> ,
 
-     Matches at the beginning of a line. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>@$</tt> ,
 
-     Matches at the end of a line. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>(?=re)</tt> ,
 
-     @e Positive lookahead (AREs only), matches at any point where a substring
 
-     matching @e re begins. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>(?!re)</tt> ,
 
-     @e Negative lookahead (AREs only), matches at any point where no substring
 
-     matching @e re begins. }
 
- @endTable
 
- The lookahead constraints may not contain back references (see later), and all
 
- parentheses within them are considered non-capturing. A RE may not end with
 
- "\".
 
- @section overview_resyntax_bracket Bracket Expressions
 
- A <em>bracket expression</em> is a list of characters enclosed in <tt>[]</tt>.
 
- It normally matches any single character from the list (but see below). If the
 
- list begins with @c ^, it matches any single character (but see below) @e not
 
- from the rest of the list.
 
- If two characters in the list are separated by <tt>-</tt>, this is shorthand
 
- for the full @e range of characters between those two (inclusive) in the
 
- collating sequence, e.g. <tt>[0-9]</tt> in ASCII matches any decimal digit.
 
- Two ranges may not share an endpoint, so e.g. <tt>a-c-e</tt> is illegal.
 
- Ranges are very collating-sequence-dependent, and portable programs should
 
- avoid relying on them.
 
- To include a literal <tt>]</tt> or <tt>-</tt> in the list, the simplest method
 
- is to enclose it in <tt>[.</tt> and <tt>.]</tt> to make it a collating element
 
- (see below). Alternatively, make it the first character (following a possible
 
- <tt>^</tt>), or (AREs only) precede it with <tt>@\</tt>. Alternatively, for
 
- <tt>-</tt>, make it the last character, or the second endpoint of a range. To
 
- use a literal <tt>-</tt> as the first endpoint of a range, make it a collating
 
- element or (AREs only) precede it with <tt>@\</tt>. With the exception of
 
- these, some combinations using <tt>[</tt> (see next paragraphs), and escapes,
 
- all other special characters lose their special significance within a bracket
 
- expression.
 
- Within a bracket expression, a collating element (a character, a
 
- multi-character sequence that collates as if it were a single character, or a
 
- collating-sequence name for either) enclosed in <tt>[.</tt> and <tt>.]</tt>
 
- stands for the sequence of characters of that collating element.
 
- @e wxWidgets: Currently no multi-character collating elements are defined. So
 
- in <tt>[.X.]</tt>, @c X can either be a single character literal or the name
 
- of a character. For example, the following are both identical:
 
- <tt>[[.0.]-[.9.]]</tt> and <tt>[[.zero.]-[.nine.]]</tt> and mean the same as
 
- <tt>[0-9]</tt>. See @ref overview_resyntax_characters.
 
- Within a bracket expression, a collating element enclosed in <tt>[=</tt> and
 
- <tt>=]</tt> is an equivalence class, standing for the sequences of characters
 
- of all collating elements equivalent to that one, including itself. An
 
- equivalence class may not be an endpoint of a range.
 
- @e wxWidgets: Currently no equivalence classes are defined, so <tt>[=X=]</tt>
 
- stands for just the single character @c X. @c X can either be a single
 
- character literal or the name of a character, see
 
- @ref overview_resyntax_characters.
 
- Within a bracket expression, the name of a @e character class enclosed in
 
- <tt>[:</tt> and <tt>:]</tt> stands for the list of all characters (not all
 
- collating elements!) belonging to that class. Standard character classes are:
 
- @beginTable
 
- @row2col{ <tt>alpha</tt>  , A letter. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>upper</tt>  , An upper-case letter. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>lower</tt>  , A lower-case letter. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>digit</tt>  , A decimal digit. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>xdigit</tt> , A hexadecimal digit. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>alnum</tt>  , An alphanumeric (letter or digit). }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>print</tt>  , An alphanumeric (same as alnum). }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>blank</tt>  , A space or tab character. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>space</tt>  , A character producing white space in displayed text. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>punct</tt>  , A punctuation character. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>graph</tt>  , A character with a visible representation. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>cntrl</tt>  , A control character. }
 
- @endTable
 
- A character class may not be used as an endpoint of a range.
 
- @e wxWidgets: In a non-Unicode build, these character classifications depend on
 
- the current locale, and correspond to the values return by the ANSI C "is"
 
- functions: <tt>isalpha</tt>, <tt>isupper</tt>, etc. In Unicode mode they are
 
- based on Unicode classifications, and are not affected by the current locale.
 
- There are two special cases of bracket expressions: the bracket expressions
 
- <tt>[[:@<:]]</tt> and <tt>[[:@>:]]</tt> are constraints, matching empty strings at
 
- the beginning and end of a word respectively.  A word is defined as a sequence
 
- of word characters that is neither preceded nor followed by word characters. A
 
- word character is an @e alnum character or an underscore (_). These special
 
- bracket expressions are deprecated; users of AREs should use constraint escapes
 
- instead (see escapes below).
 
- @section overview_resyntax_escapes Escapes
 
- Escapes (AREs only), which begin with a <tt>@\</tt> followed by an alphanumeric
 
- character, come in several varieties: character entry, class shorthands,
 
- constraint escapes, and back references. A <tt>@\</tt> followed by an
 
- alphanumeric character but not constituting a valid escape is illegal in AREs.
 
- In EREs, there are no escapes: outside a bracket expression, a <tt>@\</tt>
 
- followed by an alphanumeric character merely stands for that character as an
 
- ordinary character, and inside a bracket expression, <tt>@\</tt> is an ordinary
 
- character. (The latter is the one actual incompatibility between EREs and
 
- AREs.)
 
- Character-entry escapes (AREs only) exist to make it easier to specify
 
- non-printing and otherwise inconvenient characters in REs:
 
- @beginTable
 
- @row2col{ <tt>@\a</tt> , Alert (bell) character, as in C. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>@\b</tt> , Backspace, as in C. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>@\B</tt> ,
 
-     Synonym for <tt>@\</tt> to help reduce backslash doubling in some
 
-     applications where there are multiple levels of backslash processing. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>@\cX</tt> ,
 
-     The character whose low-order 5 bits are the same as those of @e X, and
 
-     whose other bits are all zero, where @e X is any character. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>@\e</tt> ,
 
-     The character whose collating-sequence name is @c ESC, or failing that,
 
-     the character with octal value 033. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>@\f</tt> , Formfeed, as in C. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>@\n</tt> , Newline, as in C. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>@\r</tt> , Carriage return, as in C. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>@\t</tt> , Horizontal tab, as in C. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>@\uwxyz</tt> ,
 
-     The Unicode character <tt>U+wxyz</tt> in the local byte ordering, where
 
-     @e wxyz is exactly four hexadecimal digits. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>@\Ustuvwxyz</tt> ,
 
-     Reserved for a somewhat-hypothetical Unicode extension to 32 bits, where
 
-     @e stuvwxyz is exactly eight hexadecimal digits. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>@\v</tt> , Vertical tab, as in C are all available. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>@\xhhh</tt> ,
 
-     The single character whose hexadecimal value is @e 0xhhh, where @e hhh is
 
-     any sequence of hexadecimal digits. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>@\0</tt> , The character whose value is 0. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>@\xy</tt> ,
 
-     The character whose octal value is @e 0xy, where @e xy is exactly two octal
 
-     digits, and is not a <em>back reference</em> (see below). }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>@\xyz</tt> ,
 
-     The character whose octal value is @e 0xyz, where @e xyz is exactly three
 
-     octal digits, and is not a <em>back reference</em> (see below). }
 
- @endTable
 
- Hexadecimal digits are 0-9, a-f, and A-F. Octal digits are 0-7.
 
- The character-entry escapes are always taken as ordinary characters. For
 
- example, <tt>@\135</tt> is <tt>]</tt> in ASCII, but <tt>@\135</tt> does not
 
- terminate a bracket expression. Beware, however, that some applications (e.g.,
 
- C compilers) interpret  such sequences themselves before the regular-expression
 
- package gets to see them, which may require doubling (quadrupling, etc.) the
 
- '<tt>@\</tt>'.
 
- Class-shorthand escapes (AREs only) provide shorthands for certain
 
- commonly-used character classes:
 
- @beginTable
 
- @row2col{ <tt>@\d</tt> , <tt>[[:digit:]]</tt> }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>@\s</tt> , <tt>[[:space:]]</tt> }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>@\w</tt> , <tt>[[:alnum:]_]</tt> (note underscore) }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>@\D</tt> , <tt>[^[:digit:]]</tt> }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>@\S</tt> , <tt>[^[:space:]]</tt> }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>@\W</tt> , <tt>[^[:alnum:]_]</tt> (note underscore) }
 
- @endTable
 
- Within bracket expressions, <tt>@\d</tt>, <tt>@\s</tt>, and <tt>@\w</tt> lose
 
- their outer brackets, and <tt>@\D</tt>, <tt>@\S</tt>, <tt>@\W</tt> are illegal.
 
- So, for example, <tt>[a-c@\d]</tt> is equivalent to <tt>[a-c[:digit:]]</tt>.
 
- Also, <tt>[a-c@\D]</tt>, which is equivalent to <tt>[a-c^[:digit:]]</tt>, is
 
- illegal.
 
- A constraint escape (AREs only) is a constraint, matching the empty string if
 
- specific conditions are met, written as an escape:
 
- @beginTable
 
- @row2col{ <tt>@\A</tt> , Matches only at the beginning of the string, see
 
-                          @ref overview_resyntax_matching for how this differs
 
-                          from <tt>^</tt>. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>@\m</tt> , Matches only at the beginning of a word. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>@\M</tt> , Matches only at the end of a word. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>@\y</tt> , Matches only at the beginning or end of a word. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>@\Y</tt> , Matches only at a point that is not the beginning or
 
-                          end of a word. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>@\Z</tt> , Matches only at the end of the string, see
 
-                          @ref overview_resyntax_matching for how this differs
 
-                          from <tt>@$</tt>. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>@\m</tt> , A <em>back reference</em>, where @e m is a non-zero
 
-                          digit. See below. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>@\mnn</tt> ,
 
-     A <em>back reference</em>, where @e m is a nonzero digit, and @e nn is some
 
-     more digits, and the decimal value @e mnn is not greater than the number of
 
-     closing capturing parentheses seen so far. See below. }
 
- @endTable
 
- A word is defined as in the specification of <tt>[[:@<:]]</tt> and
 
- <tt>[[:@>:]]</tt> above. Constraint escapes are illegal within bracket
 
- expressions.
 
- A back reference (AREs only) matches the same string matched by the
 
- parenthesized subexpression specified by the number. For example, "([bc])\1"
 
- matches "bb" or "cc" but not "bc". The subexpression must entirely precede the
 
- back reference in the RE.Subexpressions are numbered in the order of their
 
- leading parentheses. Non-capturing parentheses do not define subexpressions.
 
- There is an inherent historical ambiguity between octal character-entry escapes
 
- and back references, which is resolved by heuristics, as hinted at above. A
 
- leading zero always indicates an octal escape. A single non-zero digit, not
 
- followed by another digit, is always taken as a back reference. A multi-digit
 
- sequence not starting with a zero is taken as a back  reference if it comes
 
- after a suitable subexpression (i.e. the number is in the legal range for a
 
- back reference), and otherwise is taken as octal.
 
- @section overview_resyntax_metasyntax Metasyntax
 
- In addition to the main syntax described above, there are some special forms
 
- and miscellaneous syntactic facilities available.
 
- Normally the flavor of RE being used is specified by application-dependent
 
- means. However, this can be overridden by a @e director. If an RE of any flavor
 
- begins with <tt>***:</tt>, the rest of the RE is an ARE. If an RE of any
 
- flavor begins with <tt>***=</tt>, the rest of the RE is taken to be a literal
 
- string, with all characters considered ordinary characters.
 
- An ARE may begin with <em>embedded options</em>: a sequence <tt>(?xyz)</tt>
 
- (where @e xyz is one or more alphabetic characters) specifies options affecting
 
- the rest of the RE. These supplement, and can override, any options specified
 
- by the application. The available option letters are:
 
- @beginTable
 
- @row2col{ <tt>b</tt> , Rest of RE is a BRE. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>c</tt> , Case-sensitive matching (usual default). }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>e</tt> , Rest of RE is an ERE. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>i</tt> , Case-insensitive matching (see
 
-                        @ref overview_resyntax_matching, below). }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>m</tt> , Historical synonym for @e n. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>n</tt> , Newline-sensitive matching (see
 
-                        @ref overview_resyntax_matching, below). }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>p</tt> , Partial newline-sensitive matching (see
 
-                        @ref overview_resyntax_matching, below). }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>q</tt> , Rest of RE is a literal ("quoted") string, all ordinary
 
-                        characters. }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>s</tt> , Non-newline-sensitive matching (usual default). }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>t</tt> , Tight syntax (usual default; see below). }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>w</tt> , Inverse partial newline-sensitive ("weird") matching
 
-                        (see @ref overview_resyntax_matching, below). }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>x</tt> , Expanded syntax (see below). }
 
- @endTable
 
- Embedded options take effect at the <tt>)</tt> terminating the sequence. They
 
- are available only at the start of an ARE, and may not be used later within it.
 
- In addition to the usual (@e tight) RE syntax, in which all characters are
 
- significant, there is an @e expanded syntax, available in AREs with the
 
- embedded x option. In the expanded syntax, white-space characters are ignored
 
- and all characters between a <tt>@#</tt> and the following newline (or the end
 
- of the RE) are ignored, permitting paragraphing and commenting a complex RE.
 
- There are three exceptions to that basic rule:
 
- @li A white-space character or <tt>@#</tt> preceded by <tt>@\</tt> is retained.
 
- @li White space or <tt>@#</tt> within a bracket expression is retained.
 
- @li White space and comments are illegal within multi-character symbols like
 
-     the ARE <tt>(?:</tt> or the BRE <tt>\(</tt>.
 
- Expanded-syntax white-space characters are blank, tab, newline, and any
 
- character that belongs to the @e space character class.
 
- Finally, in an ARE, outside bracket expressions, the sequence <tt>(?@#ttt)</tt>
 
- (where @e ttt is any text not containing a <tt>)</tt>) is a comment, completely
 
- ignored. Again, this is not allowed between the characters of multi-character
 
- symbols like <tt>(?:</tt>. Such comments are more a historical artifact than a
 
- useful facility, and their use is deprecated; use the expanded syntax instead.
 
- @e None of these metasyntax extensions is available if the application (or an
 
- initial <tt>***=</tt> director) has specified that the user's input be treated
 
- as a literal string rather than as an RE.
 
- @section overview_resyntax_matching Matching
 
- In the event that an RE could match more than one substring of a given string,
 
- the RE matches the one starting earliest in the string. If the RE could match
 
- more than one substring starting at that point, the choice is determined by
 
- it's @e preference: either the longest substring, or the shortest.
 
- Most atoms, and all constraints, have no preference. A parenthesized RE has the
 
- same preference (possibly none) as the RE. A quantified atom with quantifier
 
- <tt>{m}</tt> or <tt>{m}?</tt> has the same preference (possibly none) as the
 
- atom itself. A quantified atom with other normal quantifiers (including
 
- <tt>{m,n}</tt> with @e m equal to @e n) prefers longest match. A quantified
 
- atom with other non-greedy quantifiers (including <tt>{m,n}?</tt> with @e m
 
- equal to @e n) prefers shortest match. A branch has the same preference as the
 
- first quantified atom in it which has a preference. An RE consisting of two or
 
- more branches connected by the @c | operator prefers longest match.
 
- Subject to the constraints imposed by the rules for matching the whole RE,
 
- subexpressions also match the longest or shortest possible substrings, based on
 
- their preferences, with subexpressions starting earlier in the RE taking
 
- priority over ones starting later. Note that outer subexpressions thus take
 
- priority over their component subexpressions.
 
- Note that the quantifiers <tt>{1,1}</tt> and <tt>{1,1}?</tt> can be used to
 
- force longest and shortest preference, respectively, on a subexpression or a
 
- whole RE.
 
- Match lengths are measured in characters, not collating elements. An empty
 
- string is considered longer than no match at all. For example, <tt>bb*</tt>
 
- matches the three middle characters of "abbbc",
 
- <tt>(week|wee)(night|knights)</tt> matches all ten characters of "weeknights",
 
- when <tt>(.*).*</tt> is matched against "abc" the parenthesized subexpression
 
- matches all three characters, and when <tt>(a*)*</tt> is matched against "bc"
 
- both the whole RE and the parenthesized subexpression match an empty string.
 
- If case-independent matching is specified, the effect is much as if all case
 
- distinctions had vanished from the alphabet. When an alphabetic that exists in
 
- multiple cases appears as an ordinary character outside a bracket expression,
 
- it is effectively transformed into a bracket expression containing both cases,
 
- so that @c x becomes @c [xX]. When it appears inside a bracket expression, all
 
- case counterparts of it are added to the bracket expression, so that @c [x]
 
- becomes @c [xX] and @c [^x] becomes @c [^xX].
 
- If newline-sensitive matching is specified, "." and bracket expressions using
 
- "^" will never match the newline character (so that matches will never cross
 
- newlines unless the RE explicitly arranges it) and "^" and "$" will match the
 
- empty string after and before a newline respectively, in addition to matching
 
- at beginning and end of string respectively. ARE <tt>@\A</tt> and <tt>@\Z</tt>
 
- continue to match beginning or end of string @e only.
 
- If partial newline-sensitive matching is specified, this affects "." and
 
- bracket expressions as with newline-sensitive matching, but not "^" and "$".
 
- If inverse partial newline-sensitive matching is specified, this affects "^"
 
- and "$" as with newline-sensitive matching, but not "." and bracket
 
- expressions. This isn't very useful but is provided for symmetry.
 
- @section overview_resyntax_limits Limits and Compatibility
 
- No particular limit is imposed on the length of REs. Programs intended to be
 
- highly portable should not employ REs longer than 256 bytes, as a
 
- POSIX-compliant implementation can refuse to accept such REs.
 
- The only feature of AREs that is actually incompatible with POSIX EREs is that
 
- <tt>@\</tt> does not lose its special significance inside bracket expressions.
 
- All other ARE features use syntax which is illegal or has undefined or
 
- unspecified effects in POSIX EREs; the <tt>***</tt> syntax of directors
 
- likewise is outside the POSIX syntax for both BREs and EREs.
 
- Many of the ARE extensions are borrowed from Perl, but some have been changed
 
- to clean them up, and a few Perl extensions are not present. Incompatibilities
 
- of note include <tt>@\b</tt>, <tt>@\B</tt>, the lack of special treatment for a
 
- trailing newline, the addition of complemented bracket expressions to the
 
- things affected by newline-sensitive matching, the restrictions on parentheses
 
- and back references in lookahead constraints, and the longest/shortest-match
 
- (rather than first-match) matching semantics.
 
- The matching rules for REs containing both normal and non-greedy quantifiers
 
- have changed since early beta-test versions of this package. The new rules are
 
- much simpler and cleaner, but don't work as hard at guessing the user's real
 
- intentions.
 
- Henry Spencer's original 1986 @e regexp package, still in widespread use,
 
- implemented an early version of today's EREs. There are four incompatibilities
 
- between @e regexp's near-EREs (RREs for short) and AREs. In roughly increasing
 
- order of significance:
 
- @li In AREs, <tt>@\</tt> followed by an alphanumeric character is either an
 
-     escape or an error, while in RREs, it was just another way of writing the
 
-     alphanumeric. This should not be a problem because there was no reason to
 
-     write such a sequence in RREs.
 
- @li @c { followed by a digit in an ARE is the beginning of a bound, while in
 
-     RREs, @c { was always an ordinary character. Such sequences should be rare,
 
-     and will often result in an error because following characters will not
 
-     look like a valid bound.
 
- @li In AREs, @c @\ remains a special character within @c [], so a literal @c @\
 
-     within @c [] must be written as <tt>@\@\</tt>. <tt>@\@\</tt> also gives a
 
-     literal @c @\ within @c [] in RREs, but only truly paranoid programmers
 
-     routinely doubled the backslash.
 
- @li AREs report the longest/shortest match for the RE, rather than the first
 
-     found in a specified search order. This may affect some RREs which were
 
-     written in the expectation that the first match would be reported. The
 
-     careful crafting of RREs to optimize the search order for fast matching is
 
-     obsolete (AREs examine all possible matches in parallel, and their
 
-     performance is largely insensitive to their complexity) but cases where the
 
-     search order was exploited to deliberately find a match which was @e not
 
-     the longest/shortest will need rewriting.
 
- @section overview_resyntax_bre Basic Regular Expressions
 
- BREs differ from EREs in several respects. @c |, @c +, and @c ? are ordinary
 
- characters and there is no equivalent for their functionality. The delimiters
 
- for bounds are @c @\{ and @c @\}, with @c { and @c } by themselves ordinary
 
- characters. The parentheses for nested subexpressions are @c @\( and @c @\),
 
- with @c ( and @c ) by themselves ordinary characters. @c ^ is an ordinary
 
- character except at the beginning of the RE or the beginning of a parenthesized
 
- subexpression, @c $ is an ordinary character except at the end of the RE or the
 
- end of a parenthesized subexpression, and @c * is an ordinary character if it
 
- appears at the beginning of the RE or the beginning of a parenthesized
 
- subexpression (after a possible leading <tt>^</tt>). Finally, single-digit back
 
- references are available, and @c @\@< and @c @\@> are synonyms for
 
- <tt>[[:@<:]]</tt> and <tt>[[:@>:]]</tt> respectively; no other escapes are
 
- available.
 
- @section overview_resyntax_characters Regular Expression Character Names
 
- Note that the character names are case sensitive.
 
- <center><table class='doctable' border='0' cellspacing='5' cellpadding='4'><tr>
 
- <td>
 
- @beginTable
 
- @row2col{ <tt>NUL</tt> , @\0 }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>SOH</tt> , @\001 }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>STX</tt> , @\002 }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>ETX</tt> , @\003 }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>EOT</tt> , @\004 }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>ENQ</tt> , @\005 }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>ACK</tt> , @\006 }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>BEL</tt> , @\007 }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>alert</tt> , @\007 }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>BS</tt> , @\010 }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>backspace</tt> , @\b }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>HT</tt> , @\011 }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>tab</tt> , @\t }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>LF</tt> , @\012 }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>newline</tt> , @\n }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>VT</tt> , @\013 }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>vertical-tab</tt> , @\v }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>FF</tt> , @\014 }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>form-feed</tt> , @\f }
 
- @endTable
 
- </td>
 
- <td>
 
- @beginTable
 
- @row2col{ <tt>CR</tt> , @\015 }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>carriage-return</tt> , @\r }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>SO</tt> , @\016 }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>SI</tt> , @\017 }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>DLE</tt> , @\020 }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>DC1</tt> , @\021 }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>DC2</tt> , @\022 }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>DC3</tt> , @\023 }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>DC4</tt> , @\024 }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>NAK</tt> , @\025 }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>SYN</tt> , @\026 }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>ETB</tt> , @\027 }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>CAN</tt> , @\030 }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>EM</tt> , @\031 }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>SUB</tt> , @\032 }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>ESC</tt> , @\033 }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>IS4</tt> , @\034 }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>FS</tt> , @\034 }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>IS3</tt> , @\035 }
 
- @endTable
 
- </td>
 
- <td>
 
- @beginTable
 
- @row2col{ <tt>GS</tt> , @\035 }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>IS2</tt> , @\036 }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>RS</tt> , @\036 }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>IS1</tt> , @\037 }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>US</tt> , @\037 }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>space</tt> , " " (space) }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>exclamation-mark</tt> , ! }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>quotation-mark</tt> , " }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>number-sign</tt> , @# }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>dollar-sign</tt> , @$ }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>percent-sign</tt> , @% }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>ampersand</tt> , @& }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>apostrophe</tt> , ' }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>left-parenthesis</tt> , ( }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>right-parenthesis</tt> , ) }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>asterisk</tt> , * }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>plus-sign</tt> , + }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>comma</tt> , \, }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>hyphen</tt> , - }
 
- @endTable
 
- </td>
 
- <td>
 
- @beginTable
 
- @row2col{ <tt>hyphen-minus</tt> , - }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>period</tt> , . }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>full-stop</tt> , . }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>slash</tt> , / }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>solidus</tt> , / }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>zero</tt> , 0 }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>one</tt> , 1 }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>two</tt> , 2 }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>three</tt> , 3 }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>four</tt> , 4 }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>five</tt> , 5 }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>six</tt> , 6 }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>seven</tt> , 7 }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>eight</tt> , 8 }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>nine</tt> , 9 }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>colon</tt> , : }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>semicolon</tt> , ; }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>less-than-sign</tt> , @< }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>equals-sign</tt> , = }
 
- @endTable
 
- </td>
 
- <td>
 
- @beginTable
 
- @row2col{ <tt>greater-than-sign</tt> , @> }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>question-mark</tt> , ? }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>commercial-at</tt> , @@ }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>left-square-bracket</tt> , [ }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>backslash</tt> , @\ }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>reverse-solidus</tt> , @\ }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>right-square-bracket</tt> , ] }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>circumflex</tt> , ^ }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>circumflex-accent</tt> , ^ }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>underscore</tt> , _ }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>low-line</tt> , _ }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>grave-accent</tt> , ' }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>left-brace</tt> , @leftCurly }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>left-curly-bracket</tt> , @leftCurly }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>vertical-line</tt> , | }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>right-brace</tt> , @rightCurly }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>right-curly-bracket</tt> , @rightCurly }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>tilde</tt> , ~ }
 
- @row2col{ <tt>DEL</tt> , @\177 }
 
- @endTable
 
- </td>
 
- </tr></table></center>
 
- */
 
 
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