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<p>Hi all,</p>
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<p>Tom has asked me whether the following string could be treated as a valid regular expression in Squeak:</p>
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<p> (:)+</p>
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<p>Currently, this raises a regex syntax error because we use colons to denote message predicates such as in '<span>:isSafeForHTTP:+'. However, if the tokens after a colon do not constitute a valid selector symbol, we *could* also consume the token as a normal
character.</span></p>
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<p><span>Initially, I disagreed with this change because it would increase the grammatical complexity of Squeak regexes. Also, we do not consider '(+' or 'a{+' valid regexes. (However, many - but not all - other regex flavors accept 'a{+' indeed - maybe we
should subject this behavior to change as well?) On the other hand, Tom would like to improve the compatibility with other regex flavors which usually do not assign a special meaning to the colon.</span></p>
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<p><span>What do you think? I am looking forward to hearing your arguments!</span></p>
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<p><span>Best,</span></p>
<p><span>Christoph</span></p>
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