[gnu.emacs.help] Probelm with regualr expressions

gray@scr.slb.com (Douglas Gray-Stephens) (05/08/91)

I am having problems with searching for a regular expression, using
either isearch-forward-regexp, or re-search-forward.  Consider
the following line:-

 #rawtest5#

locating the pointer before the line, and evaluating:-

(re-search-forward " #[^ \\n\\t]+")

will leave the pointer after on the first t i.e. 

 #rawtest5#
     ^
and returns "t".

However evaluating:-

(re-search-forward " #[^ \\n\\t]+s")

fails, with the message:-

Search failed: " #[^ \\n\\t]+s"

If this is a feature of regular expressions, can it be explained; or
is it a bug?

I am running emacs under SunOS 4.0.3, and the "problem" occurs under
either emacs version 18.52 or 18.55.


Thanks in advance,

Douglas Gray Stephens.

gray@scr.slb.com (Douglas Gray-Stephens) (05/08/91)

Please ignore my previous message, as I have realised my error in
doubling the slashes for the tabs and newlines
(i.e. \n -> \\n and \t -> \\t).


Douglas Gray Stephens.