--- In [email protected], "Owen Watson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I'm still a bit puzzled why .+<endstring> should be a lot lot slower than > \A.+<endstring> (I've removed all line endings so they're irrelevant). > Presumably .+ would start from the beginning of the file and move > forward, the same as \A.+ >
Hi Owen, If the dot is not anchored at all, there may be even more combinations that are tried. But it is when you put the question mark at the end of .+ that you make it non greedy, so it doesn't consume the entire string and then backtrack. \A.+?<endstring> Regards, Sheri
