Re: Unquoted special characters in regexps

[Luc Teirlinck <teirllm@dms.auburn.edu>]

Martin Rudalics wrote:

   If my purpose is to understand how a regexp engine interprets a regexp,
   reading a regexp forwardly is superior.

As Andreas already pointed out, there is _no_ way to determine whether
either a `]' _or_ a `\\]' has to be taken literally or closes a
character alternative without parsing the regexp forward from the start.

   In general, languages hiding implementation details are
   easier to use than languages that require users to know how specific
   features are implemented.

But if you _are_ using a language that requires parsing forward from the
beginning for correct understanding, like regexps, then _pretending_
that you are using some other type of language is not going to help.

Sincerely,

Luc.