From: Brian Candler <B.Candler@...>
Date: 2007-03-17T07:12:41+09:00
Subject: Re: [Slightly OT] Case against ".*" regexp

On Sat, Mar 17, 2007 at 05:10:08AM +0900, Robert Klemme wrote:
> On 16.03.2007 20:58, Edgardo Hames wrote:
> >Some time ago I remember reading a post in this list against using
> >".*" regexp but I cannot find it -- I guess I don't remember the right
> >keywords :(
> >Does anyone remember that?
> 
> Not exactly.  But you should not use ".*" nested in another starred 
> expression because that will usually lead to massive backtracking. 
> Another problem is, that ".*" matches the empty string which is often 
> not what you want.

And also eats as much string as it can without causing the regexp to fail -
.*? is the non-greedy form.