POSIX Regular Expression Funnyness

[Peter da Silva]

In article <9563 at smoke.BRL.MIL>, gwyn at smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn ) writes:
> In article <2962 at ficc.uu.net> peter at ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) writes:
> >Why didn't they add a few backslash-escaped metacharacters, again?

> Whatever you do, DON'T use \ for any more escapes!

I'd agree in principle that this is a good idea for new programs, but
since the existing regular expression syntax already uses \ for escapes
adding a new syntax for metacharacters [:...:] is no help (you still
need \(...\), for example), and adds gratuitous inconsistancies..
-- 
Peter da Silva, Xenix Support, Ferranti International Controls Corporation.
Work: uunet.uu.net!ficc!peter, peter at ficc.uu.net, +1 713 274 5180.   `-_-'
Home: bigtex!texbell!sugar!peter, peter at sugar.uu.net.                 'U`
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