9fans archive / 2008 / 10 / 386 /    prev next

From: erik quanstrom <quanstro@qua...>
Subject: Re: [9fans] non greedy regular expressions
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2008 09:23:31 -0400

>> practical application.  now there are big books on `regular expressions'
>> mainly because they are no longer regular but a big collection of ad-hoc
> 
> I thought they were "regular" because they "regularly" occurred in the 
> target text. Turns out other interpretations are possible. Though, mine has 
> the advantage of being correct :-D

there's a reason they're not called regularly expressions.

(if this were the definition, an expression's regularlyness would
depend on the target text, would it not?)

- erik