Re: Is there a "selective setq locator/highlighter" anywhere?

[Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>]

On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 02:44:11PM +0100, Lennart Borgman wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 2:54 PM, Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de> wrote:
> > Hi, Emacs!

[ .... ]

> > I would like a tool which would highlight these:

> >    (setq foo bar
> >          c-state-cache (cdr c-state-cache))
> >    (setcar c-state-cache (caar c-state-cache))

> Can't you catch this with a regexp? (And I never understood what the
> multi setq is good for.)

A regexp will only work in practice, sort of, not in theory.  In
particular, regexps (which are mathematically equivalent to finite state
machines) can't parse arbitrarily nested structures (for which one needs
a push-down automaton or suchlike.

> > .  Does anybody know of anything like this in existance?

Anyhow, I've thrown together a requisite piece of software.  See another
post.

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).