i see (having synced the current NetBSD lib/libc/regex to Android) that
regcomp() no longer allows unescaped `{` and `}`. this is technically
correct (since POSIX explicitly calls this undefined behavior), but it's a
change from historical NetBSD behavior.
specifically (since this was the existing Android test that failed) this is
now rejected:
{\n 1 : 2,\n 3 : -7,\n -1 : 1,\n -2 : {(0x[0-9a-f]{2},
){31}0x[0-9a-f]{2}},\n -3 : {(0x[0-9a-f]{2}, ){31}0x[0-9a-f]{2}},\n }
while this is of course fine:
\\{\n 1 : 2,\n 3 : -7,\n -1 : 1,\n -2 : \\{(0x[0-9a-f]{2},
){31}0x[0-9a-f]{2}\\},\n -3 : \\{(0x[0-9a-f]{2}, ){31}0x[0-9a-f]{2}\\},\n
\\}
but the former used to be interpreted as the latter :-)
macOS (which also has a BSD-based libc) seems to still allow the former
(but they might just be lagging behind, like Android was?).
glibc does not allow it.
i don't yet have any data on app compat failures, just this one unit test
for the OS itself so far, but i'm curious --- was this a _deliberate_
behavior change, or is this a surprise?
i don't have a plan for Android yet, and i'll probably not have one
until/unless we do see more than one test hit this in practice, but i'm
trying to think ahead about what my options might be. i'd be interested to
know whether -- if it came to it -- you'd consider a patch to restore the
old behavior. or whether you consider this change in NetBSD's behavior to
be a bug in its own right. alternatively, i can always have a "what version
of the OS were you expecting to run on?" check and offer both behaviors for
a few years before retiring the old behavior (because the Play Store
requires that you move forward with your OS version support eventually).
