John Macdonald: > [trans] > If a shorter rule is allowed to match first, then the longer > rule can be removed from the match set, at least for constant > string matches.
It is not about the length of the rules, but about the length of the matches. If both \s+ and \h+ match the same length, should then \h+ be honored because it is more specific? And are we only talking about matches at the same position? (Stepping through the input-buffer character-by-character, and testing each pattern.) > If, for example, '=' can match without > preferring to try first for '==' then you'll never match '==' > without syntactic help to force a backtracking retry. If rules will match in order of appearance, it is to the user to put the rules in the right order. Some help can be provided, like a warning when an 'ab' precedes an 'abc', and maybe even when an 'a*' precedes an 'a+'. -- Grtz, Ruud
