[cl-ppcre-devel] empty line matches with cl-ppcre

[Jan Rychter]

>>>>> "Edi" == Edi Weitz <edi at agharta.de> writes:
 Edi> On Tue, 13 Jul 2004 23:35:28 -0700, Jan Rychter <jan at rychter.com>
 Edi> wrote:
 >> I guess it is debatable whether the last "!" should be there. Perl
 >> doesn't behave that way, but I guess it _is_ an empty line, now that
 >> I think of it. And I wanted to get "!" instead of empty lines. So it
 >> actually makes more sense than Perl.

 Edi> Hmmm, yes it seems to make more sense. On the other hand, I'm
 Edi> trying to be as close to Perl as possible. Do you see any pattern
 Edi> there? Any idea why Perl doesn't add the last exclamation mark?

Uh, well, hmm. I've tried reading "man perlre", but the part about \z,
\Z and multiline strings gave me a headache. 

I really have no idea why Perl doesn't treat the end of a string as an
"$" in this case, because it certainly does so for other expressions
(e.g. "^4$" _will_ match at the end of a multiline string ending in
"...\n4"). I see no reason to treat a string ending in "\n$" (on UNIX)
differently: "^$" should definitely match there, as a new line has
begun, and ended, being empty.

My suggestion would be to document this behavior. A brave soul could
report this to the Perl people, but I seriously doubt they'd consider it
a bug. It might be one of those DWIM things.

--J.