Because one can use \d and \s to build larger character classes. A dot already matches everything but a single character.

What's the point of having such a character inside a character class? All you can do is build 4 different character classes: /[.]/, /[.\n]/, /[^.]/, /[^.\n]/. But they can all be written in a simple, different way: /./, /(?s:.)/, /\n/, and /(*FAIL)/

So, once again, what would be the advantage of having dot inside a character class mean the same thing as outside of it?

In reply to Re^3: regexp question by JavaFan
in thread regexp question by ramprasad27

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