On Nov 24, 2006, at 4:51 PM, Peter Dyballa wrote:

>
> Am 24.11.2006 um 22:14 schrieb Dieter Wilhelm:
>
>> Just for completeness: where to look for the answer? In AWK, Perl, an
>> Elisp function on the Emacs wiki?
>
> Into this list – or its archive(s)! This kind of question was  
> answered more than once. This year, last year, ... It might be time  
> to put it into an FAQ or a Wiki. Hints are given in the Elisp info  
> doc on Regexp (where the full description can be found):
>
> 	`.' (Period)
> 	     is a special character that matches any single character
> 	     except a newline.
> 	
> 	`[^ ... ]'
> 	     A complemented character alternative can match a newline,
> 	     unless newline is mentioned as one of the characters not
> 	     to match.  This is in contrast to the handling of regexps
> 	     in programs such as `grep'.
>
> So "{[^}]*}" stands for 'a region that starts with `{´ and has no `} 
> ´ until the final `}´ is hit; between both braces any number  
> (starting with 0) of any character except `}´ can appear.'

I don't quite understand why this should be in an "emacs" FAQ or  
wiki.  Its basic regular expressions.  One such document is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions#Syntax

Perry Smith ( pedz@easesoftware.com )
Ease Software, Inc. ( http://www.easesoftware.com )

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