Re: back references in regexen

Dear Tobi:
Thank you for your note dated May 21, 2003 re. back references in
Regular expressions:
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-qt-comments/2003May/0288.html

The Functions and Operators taskforce discussed your request during its
telcon on June 12, 2003.
While the functionality you suggest is interesting, it is complex and
the taskforce felt that the additional complexity was not warranted at
this point.  Also, we are trying to stay close the regular expression
facilities in XML Schema which do not have this functionality.

Please let us know if you are satisfied with this response. 

All the best, 
Ashok Malhotra on behalf of the Functions and Operators taskforce