If the regex is anchored to the beginning of the string, it could fail without reaching the end. Otherwise, as far as I can imagine it would have to match every available substring* up to the end of the string.

* if the match is at least N characters long the match will fail if any of the (last - N) .. last characters of the string don't match and the subsequent characters don't have to be tested. Anyway this is equivalent to running into the end of string.

"What should it profit a man, if he should win a flame war, yet lose his cool?"

In reply to Re^2: Did regex match fail because of "end of string"? by Joost
in thread Did regex match fail because of "end of string"? by moritz

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