From: James Edward Gray II <james@...>
Date: 2004-10-05T23:04:13+09:00
Subject: Re: Regexp match question on interpolated strings...

On Oct 5, 2004, at 4:09 AM, Brian Schr�der wrote:

> Regular expressions are not able to "count" more than a finite number 
> of states, and the number of states is fixed at compile time. That is 
> because regular expressions map to finite automata. So it is 
> impossible to match opening and closing braces in an unknown 
> expression. For this to work always you need a model that can enter 
> unbounded many states.

Just for the sake of clarity, you are speaking of Ruby's regular 
expressions here.  Perl's regex engine has no such limitation.  Using 
the (?? ... ) construct, Perl regular expressions can parse balanced 
delimiters.  I miss this feature and would love to see Ruby add 
something similar in the future.

James Edward Gray II