Re: multiline regex mode?

[Dieter Wilhelm <dieter@duenenhof-wilhelm.de>]

Harald Hanche-Olsen <hanche@math.ntnu.no> writes:

> + Peter Dyballa <Peter_Dyballa@Web.DE>:
>
> | I think you can't use one regular expression for a variety of nested
> | "*balanced* brackets like { { } }".
>

Got it Pete, in this case regexps are a no no! Good to know.

> You think rightly.  In formal language theory, the regular languages
> are precisely the ones that can be defined by regular grammars.  It is
> a theorem that they are precisely the languages that can be recognized
> by a finite state automaton (FSA).  A regular expression is a way of
> specifying a regular grammar, i.e., a regular language, and so they
> are not powerful enough to recognize balanced parentheses.  The reason
> is that you need to be able to count arbitrarily high, in order to be
> able to tell the difference between expressions like
> {{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}} and {{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}.
> A FSA with fifteen states cannot tell the difference between the two
> expressions above, since it would need to be able to count to sixteen
> in order to do so.

Thank you for the background.

> So the paren mathcing algorithms in emacs need to be written in code.
> And indeed it is:  At the bottom you'll find the function scan-sexps,
> which is written in C (for efficiency, no doubt).

OK, then it has to be scan-sexps in the code.

>
> See also:
>
>   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_grammar

I don't have to understand it, must I? ;-) Thank you for the pointers.

-- 
    Best wishes

    H. Dieter Wilhelm
    Darmstadt, Germany