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| author | Jeremy Evans <code@jeremyevans.net> | 2019-08-28 11:40:56 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Jeremy Evans <code@jeremyevans.net> | 2019-08-28 11:50:33 -0700 |
| commit | cd0e208963bdf9ee2fec30e83bdc8f6bc77a7b8d (patch) | |
| tree | b968164b415893e52490bcb8f2496f8ad0fc7197 /doc | |
| parent | e82719c6511cf00bd4b92759ba0197108cfad0cc (diff) | |
Document {n}? regexp pattern is optional and not non-greedy [ci skip]
While not consistent with {n,}?, {,m}?, and {n,m}?, it is arguably
more useful, as otherwise the ? would have no effect.
Fixes [Bug #15583]
Diffstat (limited to 'doc')
| -rw-r--r-- | doc/regexp.rdoc | 7 |
1 files changed, 5 insertions, 2 deletions
diff --git a/doc/regexp.rdoc b/doc/regexp.rdoc index 40c73952d6..20e8e3634a 100644 --- a/doc/regexp.rdoc +++ b/doc/regexp.rdoc @@ -189,8 +189,11 @@ At least one uppercase character ('H'), at least one lowercase character Repetition is <i>greedy</i> by default: as many occurrences as possible are matched while still allowing the overall match to succeed. By contrast, <i>lazy</i> matching makes the minimal amount of matches -necessary for overall success. A greedy metacharacter can be made lazy by -following it with <tt>?</tt>. +necessary for overall success. Most greedy metacharacters can be made lazy +by following them with <tt>?</tt>. For the <tt>{n}</tt> pattern, because +it specifies an exact number of characters to match and not a variable +number of characters, the <tt>?</tt> metacharacter instead makes the +repeated pattern optional. Both patterns below match the string. The first uses a greedy quantifier so '.+' matches '<a><b>'; the second uses a lazy quantifier so '.+?' matches |