GNU bug report logs - #41006
26.3; regular expressions documentation

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Package: emacs;

Reported by: jan <rtm443x <at> googlemail.com>

Date: Fri, 1 May 2020 19:07:01 UTC

Severity: wishlist

Found in version 26.3

Done: Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org>

Bug is archived. No further changes may be made.

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From: Mattias Engdegård <mattiase <at> acm.org>
To: Richard Stallman <rms <at> gnu.org>
Cc: jan <rtm443x <at> googlemail.com>, Stefan Kangas <stefan <at> marxist.se>, 41006 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: bug#41006: 26.3; regular expressions documentation
Date: Tue, 5 May 2020 19:12:50 +0200

4 maj 2020 kl. 05.10 skrev Richard Stallman <rms <at> gnu.org>:

> Would you like to propose an ordering and classification by function?

Start with the lexical details: special chars, escaping, literals.
Then something like this:

* concatenation and alternative
* repetition: * + ? etc
* bracketing: \(?: ... \)
* single-character expressions: [...] '.' \cX etc
* zero-width assertions: ^ $ \< etc
* capture groups and backrefs

Aim for all in a single node, using subheadings as appropriate, as this is what the user probably wants to see. Use subnodes for some in-depth information such as named character classes.

As Stefan pointed out, a section comparing the syntax with that of other regexp implementations likely seen by the user would be very welcome. It would permit the reader to make use of existing knowledge while reducing mistakes coming from incorrect assumptions.
This bug report was last modified 3 years and 25 days ago.

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