GNU bug report logs - #9681
Broken behaviour of re-search-backward (.+ matching only a single character)

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From: Stefan Monnier <monnier <at> iro.umontreal.ca>
To: Štěpán Němec <stepnem <at> gmail.com>
Cc: 9681 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: bug#9681: Broken behaviour of re-search-backward (.+ matching only a single character)
Date: Fri, 07 Oct 2011 09:02:18 -0400

>> re-search-* stops at the first character position that has a match.
>> And then it chooses the longest match at that position.
> Thanks, but I'm not sure I understand what you mean here. Naturally, the
> longest match for `re-search-backward' should be backward, not forward,

Ah, yes, sorry for being unclear: the search for a match goes backward,
but the matching itself goes forward.

The docstring of re-search-backward is more clear about that:

   The match found is the one starting last in the buffer
   and yet ending before the origin of the search.

> If I'm the only one who considers this behaviour broken (by design?[1]),

It's not the ideal behavior, admittedly.  It's even more obvious in
`looking-back'.  But fixing it would require the implementation of
a backward regexp matcher.


        Stefan

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