Re: re-builder bug(s)

[P.L.Hayes]

Richard Stallman <address@hidden> writes:

> I fixed the bug in the custom type, I think.
>
>     I also find (and I'm not quite sure whether it's a real bug or just
>     something I haven't understood about regexps or re-builder) that
>     expressions such as "\\>" and "$" in the re-builder buffer don't work
>     (and are flagged as "*invalid*" in the modeline) but ".\\>" and ".$",
>
> Would you please send a precise, complete test case for this?

Open a new buffer, put it in text mode and insert a line of text into it:

     C-x b *reb-test* RET M-x text-mode RET
     Kidman's publicist, Catherine Olim, said the star was trying to shake 
zombies off the bonnet of her Jaguar when the car spun off the road. RET

Try to use re-builder to count the number of words in the buffer:

    M-x re-builder RET
    \\>

As soon as the first `\' is entered between the `"'s, in the
*RE-Builder* buffer, "*invalid*" appears in the modeline.
Now replace the regexp in the *RE-Builder* buffer with another:

    DEL DEL DEL
    .\\>

Success! - the last character of each word in the *reb-test* buffer
has been highlighted and a message, "25 matches" has appeared in the
minibuffer. Likewise, the regexp, "^" will not find the empty string
at the beginning of the buffer but "^." will and "$" will not find the
end of the buffer but ".$" will.