on Mon, Apr 26, 2004 at 10:45:40PM +0100, Jonathan Dowland (jmtd@compsoc.dur.ac.uk) wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 26, 2004 at 04:44:51PM -0400, Antonio Rodriguez wrote:
> > I have tried
> > color body yellow default '*' but it doesn't work.
>
> It says [regexp] .. you want '.*' (valid regexp) not '*' (a plain
> wildcard.. not a regexp par se).
Wrong. It's not that '*' isn't a regexp, it's that it's not a valid
one. '*' isn't a wildcard, it's a modifier saying "zero or more of
prior atom".
So: ".*" is "zero or more of any character". "*" is a modifier (zero
or more) without a refferant atom. So it's ill-formed.
man (7) regex for more on this, or pick up the O'Reilly _Mastering
Regular Expressions_.
Note too that "." will *almost* always work -- so long as whatever it is
you're matching has one or more characters in it. And in mail, most do.
Monique's earlier limit example can also be simplified: "~L .*" can
pretty much always be reduced to "~L .", saving a character and keyboard
modifier.
Peace.
--
Karsten M. Self <kmself@ix.netcom.com> http://kmself.home.netcom.com/
What Part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?
Backgrounder on the Caldera/SCO vs. IBM and Linux dispute.
http://sco.iwethey.org/
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature