Author: Philip Hazel Date: To: Sheri CC: pcre-dev Subject: Re: [pcre-dev] UTF8 inline option feature suggestion
On Sun, 5 Apr 2009, Sheri wrote:
> Philip,
>
> Would you consider adding another inline beginning of pattern option,
> this one for turning on UTF8?
>
> Perhaps (*UTF8) ?
Two problems here. First is one of style. The (*xxx) things are all to
do with backtracking, not options. Perl describes them as "verbs". The
options are all (?x) things. Second problem is that the (?x) things can
have limited scope (e.g. inside parens). Without far more work than I am
prepared to contemplate, I don't belive that compiling a pattern partly
with UTF8 on and partly with it off would be feasible (or sensible).
I suppose one could insist that it be present only at top-level and give
an error if it appeared at a lower level. I will take a look at (?8)
perhaps. But maybe not for the forthcoming release (depending on how
difficult it actually is).
