Thanks for all the replies! I tried adding the following test to see if I can get it working (as I said, I have now rewritten it to do the parsing by hand, but I would like to figure it out for next time): 
 
$braces = qr/(?<braces>\{ ([^\{\}]++ | (?&braces))*+ \} )/x;
if ($h =~ s/class \s+ (?<class_name> \w+) \s* (\: (\s* \w*)? \s* (?<an
+cestor> \w+))? \s* $braces//x) {
   print "hi\n";
}

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The match is never made however... The code I'm matching against is a C++ header file, and I'm looking for class definitions, formatted like this : 
class MyClassName : public MyAncestorClass {
...
...
};

[download]
This expression works fine for smaller classes or for this same problem class if there are no braces inside the class definition. In this class however, I have the following declarations (C++ Builder code...) : 
  __property TNotifyEvent OnMonaDocSaveToDB = {read=FOnMonaDocSaveToDB
+, write=FOnMonaDocSaveToDB};

[download]
If I remove that property declaration, it matches, if I leave it, it fails... Jonathan

In reply to Re^3: Perl regex limitations (32k) by jonneve
in thread Perl regex limitations by jonneve

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