[pcre-dev] PCRE feature request

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Author: M.Taylor
Date:  
To: pcre-dev
Subject: [pcre-dev] PCRE feature request
Hi,

For may years now, I have gratefully used PCRE in my text editor.

currently, I can only easily do forwards RE searches, unlike string
searches which can be forwards or backwards.

I would really like to provide backwards RE searches, and to do this I
would need a change made to PCRE (or at least I think I would - please
correct me if I am wrong here).

I do realise that the very nature of RE assumes "forwardness", and that
it might not possible to add this feature. I am not suggesting that the
inherent "forwardness" of REs be reversed (I know this would be impossible).

But all I need is this: given a string to be searched and RE to search
for, then return the last match instead of the first. That's it.

When I need to repeat the search to find earlier matches, I can do this
by restricting the end-point of the search space to just before the last
match, using existing functionality.

regards,
mark.

-- 
Mark Taylor
Corporate Information and Computing Services
University of Sheffield
Email M.Taylor@???
Tel 0114 222 1145 (direct line)
    0114 222 2000 ext 21145 (via switchboard)