[TriLUG] A curious regular expression

[Jim Ray]

Me thinks that regular expression is Popeye cussing!

Shawn, me thinks you've helped me out quite a bit over the years on the
other list (tntug.org) whose name we want mention on this list.

Regards,
 
Jim
 
Jim Ray, President
Neuse River Networks
tel: 919-838-1672 cell: 919-606-1772
http://www.Neuse.Net
 
Connecting You to the World since 1997
 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: trilug-bounces at trilug.org [mailto:trilug-bounces at trilug.org] On
Behalf Of Shawn
> William Taylor
> Sent: Sunday, April 08, 2007 7:04 PM
> To: Triangle Linux Users Group discussion list
> Subject: Re: [TriLUG] A curious regular expression
> 
> Nope, I think that ".%*@*#&" gets it!!
> 
> I can't say I have known Jim since '97. I can say however, whenever I am
> in a pinch, he always seems to have a crowbar.
> 
> Shawn
> 
> Aaron wrote:
> 
> Forgive me for latching onto a rather curious portion of your message,
> but that REGEX is a most unusual one.it's syntactically valid (your
> brackets match, your braces contain an actual numerical range
> representation, etc), so I have to think you spent a moment constructing
> it, but it's very unlikely to match a sensible string?
> 
> Potential matches include:
> .#&%
> *#&%
> .@#&%
> *@@#&%
> 
> or any combination of the leading . and * followed by 0 to 99 @'s, then
> followed by the string #&$.  I suppose it could be used to indicate a
> Bugs Bunny style expletive of up to 103 chars in length, with increasing
>  lengths involving just padding the @'s, possibly found in the middle of
> some other text?
> 
> A more general and flexible regex might be something like
> /[.*#&%]{,99}/, unless in your experience they always start with . or *,
> for some reason?  I'd also include ! and $ in the list of potential
> character matches commonly found in cartoon expletives.
> 
> Or, is there some more subtle intended implication I'm overlooking,
> here?  :)
> Aaron S. Joyner
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