On Fri, Oct 12, 2001 at 09:13:32AM -0600, Chris Fedde wrote:
> Submitted for your review
>
> Thanks!
>
> Index: perlfaq6.pod
> ===================================================================
> RCS file: /home/perlcvs/perlfaq/perlfaq6.pod,v
> retrieving revision 1.1
> diff -u -r1.1 perlfaq6.pod
> --- perlfaq6.pod 2001/09/20 03:03:00 1.1
> +++ perlfaq6.pod 2001/10/12 15:08:01
> @@ -383,20 +383,28 @@
>
> =head2 Can I use Perl regular expressions to match balanced text?
>
> -Although Perl regular expressions are more powerful than "mathematical"
> -regular expressions because they feature conveniences like backreferences
> -(C<\1> and its ilk), they still aren't powerful enough--with
> -the possible exception of bizarre and experimental features in the
> -development-track releases of Perl. You still need to use non-regex
> -techniques to parse balanced text, such as the text enclosed between
> -matching parentheses or braces, for example.
> +historically, Perl regular expressions were not capable of matching
> +balanced text. As of more recent versions of perl including 5.6.1
> +features have been added that make it possible to do this. Look at
> +the documentation for the (??{ }) construct in recent perlre manual
> +pages to see an example of matching balanced parenthesis.
The point the paragraph you've deleted is making is that (??{ }) is
an *experimental* feature. As the manual page of 5.6.1 is saying:
WARNING: This extended regular expression fea�
ture is considered highly experimental, and may
be changed or deleted without notice. A simpli�
fied version of the syntax may be introduced for
commonly used idioms.
And this is still present in the current development track.
It's ok if you add something to the answer, but IMO, it would be wrong
to leave out the big warning it feature is experimental.
Personally, I hope to see this horribly ugly "feature" gone from Perl.
Abigail
