It is because regular expressions merely have the power of finite state machines. These finite state machines have NO memory.... how could it match equal numbers of an indeterminate quantity without MEMORY. It can't. That's why you would need the power of a more expressive grammar ... that is that which can be expressed by a pushdown automota. With a pushdown, we have a "stack" of memory that we can save about each state. Clearly, you can see how the matched parenthesis problem becomes very simple with such a mechanism at hand.

In reply to Re: What can regular expressions NOT do? by Anonymous Monk
in thread What can regular expressions NOT do? by kryten

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