Re: regex issue

Both Javascript 1.2 and Perl 5 support \w as:

JS \w, \W Match any word/non-word character
Perl \w matches alphanumeric, including _, \W matches non-alphanumeric

Interesting that the IBM documentation does not describe the RE grammar supported by these APIs.

I note that the MacOS X implementation states:

A backslashed character other than one specifically given a magic meaning
by IEEE Std 1003.2 (``POSIX.2'') (such magic meanings occur only in obso-
lete [``basic''] REs) is taken as an ordinary character.

thus I infer that if you want \w to have a magic meaning you need to compile without REG_EXTENDED. Given that the regex APIs are a POSIX.2 function I presume OS/400 exhibits similar behaviour however watch out for:

There are a number of decisions that IEEE Std 1003.2 (``POSIX. 2'') leaves
up to the implementor, either by explicitly saying ``undefined'' or by
virtue of them being forbidden by the RE grammar.

On 14/06/2008, at 4:45 PM, Scott Klement wrote:

I've never heard of \w, and I don't think that's part of the standard
regex syntax. Are you sure it's supported by the regcomp() API?

Why don't you just do something like:

^PRT[0-9A-Z]+

Not only is that a more standard syntax, but it seems easier to
understand what it means, IMHO.


Paul Jackson wrote:

Hello,

I am using a regex of ^PRT\w+ to select device names to be the letters
PRT followed by at least one digit or letter and am finding that the
execution of regexec only classes names valid if they are PRT followed
by a W. In Regex syntax the \w is supposed to match to a digit or
"word character" and the plus sign means "one or more".

Am wondering if anyone knows what is wrong? I compiled the regex with
REG_EXTENDED + REG_ICASE + REG_NOSUB if that helps.

Regards,
-Paul

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Regards,
Simon Coulter.
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