Re: Question about some fields in regex's re_pattern_buffer

[Paolo Bonzini]

On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 12:36, Reuben Thomas <address@hidden> wrote:
> On 18 August 2010 08:52, Paolo Bonzini <address@hidden> wrote:
>> Syntax options are anyway not going to be supported by the POSIX API,
>
> That's why I mentioned extensions. glibc has many GNU extensions to
> POSIX APIs, both in the form of extended semantics of existing APIs
> and new-but-similar APIs; I was wondering whether it might be more
> profitable in the long run to add functionality such as backwards
> searching and syntax options as extensions to the POSIX APIs rather
> than force developers to choose either POSIX or GNU (or, more likely,
> add the missing functionality to a more commonly-used package such as
> PCRE).

We have been very strict in adding extensions to the POSIX APIs
(basically only REG_STARTEND).

Adding syntax bits to PCRE would be nice indeed, but then PCRE
does not guarantee POSIX leftmost-longest matching like GNU
regex does.

Paolo