Re: The semantics of the disambiguation constructs

Steven Pemberton <steven.pemberton@cwi.nl> writes:
>  The fact that [] just fails to match feels so counterintuitive to me! I keep forgetting about it.
>
> Michael insisted on us including it, so I suppose he had a use-case.

Having a way to “not match anything” makes sens. I think it’s just unfortunate that it’s syntactically problematic. It’s just so easy to glance at it and think “that matches nothing, ε” not “that can match no characters”.

I find the “match any character” construction, ~[], even more offensive to my aesthetic sensibilities, but I’ve just sort of resigned myself to get used to it and get it wrong occasionally when I’m in a hurry.

                                        Be seeing you,
                                          norm

--
Norm Tovey-Walsh
Saxonica

Received on Wednesday, 4 February 2026 11:00:02 UTC