From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Barry Margolin Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: trivial regexp problem Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2013 15:02:59 -0500 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1358885116 10276 80.91.229.3 (22 Jan 2013 20:05:16 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2013 20:05:16 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Jan 22 21:05:35 2013 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Txk6A-0003P5-LA for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Tue, 22 Jan 2013 21:05:34 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:54296 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Txk5s-0004aq-F0 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Tue, 22 Jan 2013 15:05:16 -0500 Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!news.glorb.com!feeder.erje.net!eu.feeder.erje.net!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!mx04.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help Original-Lines: 34 Injection-Info: barmar.motzarella.org; posting-host="2be9e9f5dd9af768b8861af71b85fc28"; logging-data="5922"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX18OqH9vdGggm68yee7837W/" User-Agent: MT-NewsWatcher/3.5.3b3 (Intel Mac OS X) Cancel-Lock: sha1:TjfxvM15/gk4cpokynbgLT5rOjk= Original-Xref: usenet.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:196477 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:88771 Archived-At: In article , Peter Dyballa wrote: > Am 22.01.2013 um 17:44 schrieb Barry Margolin: > > > Since it's > > immediately followed by .*, which matches anything, the regexp will > > match whether or not the line begins with whitespace. > > Yes, it not only matches the beginning of every line, it also matches the > beginning of every empty lineŠ That's not an issue, because the regexp includes ":". So it only matches on lines that contain a colon. But there's no difference between: ^[ \t]*.*: and: ^.*: There *would* be a difference if you used grouping, e.g.: ^\([ \t]*\)\(.*\): because this allows you to extract the whitespace prefix and the part of the line after it. -- Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu Arlington, MA *** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me ***