Re: Yet another regex bug.

I would drive this from the principle that removing the comment should make no difference to what the program does. That is, your example should be exactly the same as /abc+/; it should match one or more c. If it's acting the same as /(?:abc)+/, I'd call it a bug.

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Re: Re: Yet another regex bug. by hossman (Prior) on Nov 12, 2002 at 03:11 UTC
That implies that "removing the comment" is the translation... /abc(?#comment)+/ ----> ~~/abc(?#comment)+/~~ /abc+/ Where as I (and evidently at least 2 other people) expect it to be the translation... /abc(?#comment)+/ ------> /abc()+/ Updated: forgot to acctually make the translation i was trying to show.	[reply]
Re (3): Yet another regex bug. by VSarkiss (Monsignor) on Nov 12, 2002 at 03:33 UTC
Well, your first line is the identity transformation, which isn't removing anything. ;-) The parentheses surrounding the `?#` are part of the syntax; that is, the comment marker in a regexp begins `(?#`, not `?#`. (Check perlre: all the "funny" extended-pattern elements start with `(?`, one of the reasons being that it's a mnemonic to "question" what's coming next.¹) Thus if you're removing the comment you should remove the parentheses as well. ¹I don't buy the explanation, by the way, but it's there..	[reply] [d/l] [select]