From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Stefan Monnier Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: bug in elisp... or in elisper??? Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2011 11:27:34 -0400 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Message-ID: References: <4D8932A8.9080007@mousecar.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1300894858 13031 80.91.229.12 (23 Mar 2011 15:40:58 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2011 15:40:58 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Mar 23 16:40:52 2011 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Q2QB1-0001Q0-B8 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 23 Mar 2011 16:40:51 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:58682 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Q2QB0-0003xH-PU for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 23 Mar 2011 11:40:50 -0400 Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!news-transit.tcx.org.uk!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help Original-Lines: 33 Injection-Info: mx02.eternal-september.org; posting-host="9BGUJNB+A1XxKfix1KbMeg"; logging-data="20796"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1/0hpkEoIvVMOvXp3yCyjeV" User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.0.50 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:5Z4UZXnzxQGbTbF3aHfWZiMvV9g= sha1:5KHuN0teCYc+bUL7FMVEbilOB8Q= Original-Xref: usenet.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:186203 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:80341 Archived-At: > I am, however, starting to have trust issues with documentation I find > on the web. Don't believe everything you read. > Is it actually true (what the docs say) that there's a limit of nine > sub-expression match-strings per RE? No. > Or can I do, e.g., "(match-string 12)" and "(match-string 15)"? Yes. > What is the actual limit? The limit currently is around 255 sub-groups (or maybe 127), IIRC. OTOH back-references can only refer to subgroups 1-9 (because we haven't bothered to introduce a syntax for other cases). > Whatever it is, is this hard-coded into elisp... or can it be > changed/configured to something else? It's hardcoded in the C code of the regexp engine. BTW, I recommend you use the "online" documentation distributed with Emacs. There are function and variable docstrings (C-h f, C-h v), plus Info documents (Emacs manual, Elisp manual). We work pretty hard to keep those up-to-date and of good quality. And if you find something to be untrue in there, please report it via M-x report-emacs-bug. Stefan