From: Kristof Bastiaensen <kristof@...>
Date: 2004-05-15T01:18:52+09:00
Subject: Re: Regexp Error?

On Fri, 14 May 2004 08:54:22 -0600, Ara.T.Howard wrote:
> 
> what guy is saying here is that __unless__ both '(.*)' __and__ '.*' match in
> the above - you don't have match.  we all agree that the '(.*)' matches the
> entire 'abc' and we all agree that the pattern '(.*).*' matches 'abc' -
> therefore we all agree that it's correct that certain pattern match zero width
> positions in strings and consume no chars whilst still matching.  

Agree until here.

> therefore we
> all agree that
> 
>   '123-456'.gsub /.*$/, 'X' => 'XX'
> 
> because if it __didn't__ '(.*).*' could not match 'abc'
> 
> 
> -a

I don't agree.  The things is, you can't really consume 'nothing'.
If I follow your reasoning, the above should give 'XXX', because
123-456 matches /(.*)(.*)(.*)/.  How much empty spaces are there between
two characters?  One, three, infinite? There have to be rules, and I would
find the following the most logical one:

* when the empty space is already matched before, don't match
again, unless explicitly against ? or *.  (gawk behaviour?)

Kristof