Re: smiley regexp problem

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

Rajsekar <rajsekar@cse.iitm.ernet.in> writes:

> Rajsekar <rajsekar@cse.iitm.ernet.in> writes:
>
>> I want to setup the smileys similar to gaim.
>> So I put 
>>
>>         "\\(:)\\)\\W" for smile.
>> and
>>         "\\(:))\\)\\W" for laugh.
>>
>> The problem is that :)) also contains a :).  At the same time, i do not
>> want to replace \W with something like [^)] because i lose the advantage of
>> \W (which works based on the current syntax).  I want something like \\W
>> minus the character `('.  Can someone tell me how to achieve this?
>
> I see from theory that the needed language is still a regexp, yet i
> am not able to express it in the language of regexp.  Is it a
> shortcoming in the language?

Why don't you match "laugh" first, and only look for a smile if no
laugh is can be found?

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum