Re: pathological LDM regular-expressions

• To: "Kopp, Fred" <Fred.Kopp@xxxxxxxxx>
• Subject: Re: pathological LDM regular-expressions
• From: Steve Emmerson <steve@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
• Date: Fri, 14 Feb 2003 11:08:57 -0700

Fred,

I'm including the "ldm-user" mailing-list in my reply because the
question is of general interest (you're not the first to ask).  I hope
you don't mind.

>Date: Fri, 14 Feb 2003 11:03:02 -0700
>From: "Kopp, Fred" <Fred.Kopp@xxxxxxxxx>
>To: "'Steve Emmerson'" <steve@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Subject: RE: pathological LDM regular-expressions

The above message contained the following:

> I have a request:
> 
> request HDS "^[YZ].Q.*/mRUC" papagayo.unl.edu
> 
> should this be changed to:
> 
> request HDS "^[YZ].Q/mRUC" papagayo.unl.edu
> 
> somehow I don't think this would work.

Don't change the above request.  The ".*" string doesn't appear to result
in a pathological RE if it appears in the middle of the RE.  It's only
when the ".*" IS A PREFIX that this appears to happen.

Similarly, however, don't have a ".*" SUFFIX in your RE-s.  Although I
don't know if such RE-s are pathological or not, the ".*" suffix
certainly doesn't add anything to the RE.

Regards,
Steve Emmerson   <http://www.unidata.ucar.edu>