Well I had an idea for how to optimize NFA RE engines that I think has potential, but I am not planning on doing any time soon. OK, it isn't directly Perl, but it does involve parsing and if it works well it would be appropriate for including in the RE engines of languages like Perl and Python. Take a look at this proposed optimization, and see if trying to implement and do basic tests on that interests you.

If it does, feel free to contact me privately. (Not that I have done anything with it other than some preliminary analysis...)

For the record the point is that, at the cost of extra work at compilation, it should allow any RE which can be solved by a DFA to be solved by an NFA without the exponential backtracking disasters that are traditionally problems for NFA engines.

In reply to Re (tilly) 1: Research ideas by tilly
in thread Research ideas by Wodin

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