syntax table not greedy enough

[Spike Ilacqua]

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In GNU Emacs 21.3.1 (i386--freebsd, X toolkit, Xaw3d scroll bars)
 of 2004-02-16 on net.indra.com
configured using `configure  --x-libraries=/usr/X11R6/lib 
--x-includes=/usr/X11R6/include --prefix=/usr/local i386--freebsd'
Important settings:
  value of $LC_ALL: nil
  value of $LC_COLLATE: nil
  value of $LC_CTYPE: nil
  value of $LC_MESSAGES: nil
  value of $LC_MONETARY: nil
  value of $LC_NUMERIC: nil
  value of $LC_TIME: nil
  value of $LANG: nil
  locale-coding-system: nil
  default-enable-multibyte-characters: t

Please describe exactly what actions triggered the bug
and the precise symptoms of the bug:

If you have a comment syntax that uses the same charater as the start
of a single and a two-character comment, ie: "| " and "|* [...] *| are
both types of comments, Emacs fails to reconize the second form
because it stops when it sees the first.  This syntax-table:


      (modify-syntax-entry ?\n ">" st)
      (modify-syntax-entry ?\| "< 14" st)
      (modify-syntax-entry ?\* ". 23b" st)

describes the above syntax, but does not work because "|" overides
"|*".  Because comment type "b" is not reconized multi-line comments
do not work and in-line comments are extended past "*|" to the end of
the line.

Thanks,

->Spike