Mercurial > emacs
changeset 11651:f43818d3bbd8
Warn about nested repetition.
| author | Richard M. Stallman <rms@gnu.org> |
|---|---|
| date | Tue, 02 May 1995 03:47:29 +0000 |
| parents | 38f3ac2845f7 |
| children | 1162093d885c |
| files | lispref/searching.texi |
| diffstat | 1 files changed, 8 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-) [+] |
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--- a/lispref/searching.texi Tue May 02 02:18:34 1995 +0000 +++ b/lispref/searching.texi Tue May 02 03:47:29 1995 +0000 @@ -225,6 +225,14 @@ The next alternative is for @samp{a*} to match only two @samp{a}s. With this choice, the rest of the regexp matches successfully.@refill +Nested repetition operators can be extremely slow if they specify +backtracking loops. For example, @samp{\(x+y*\)*a} could take hours to +match the sequence @samp{xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxz}. The +slowness is because Emacs must try each imaginable way of grouping the +35 @samp{x}'s before concluding that none of them can work. To make +sure your regular expressions run fast, check nested repetitions +carefully. + @item + @cindex @samp{+} in regexp is a suffix operator similar to @samp{*} except that the preceding