Perl mode font-lock-mode and $'

[Matthieu Moy]

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In GNU Emacs 21.2.2 (sparc-sun-solaris2.5.1, X toolkit)
 of 2002-08-05 on crx968
configured using `configure  --prefix=/var/tmp/bgm'
Important settings:
  value of $LC_ALL: nil
  value of $LC_COLLATE: nil
  value of $LC_CTYPE: nil
  value of $LC_MESSAGES: nil
  value of $LC_MONETARY: nil
  value of $LC_NUMERIC: nil
  value of $LC_TIME: nil
  value of $LANG: C
  locale-coding-system: nil
  default-enable-multibyte-characters: t

Please describe exactly what actions triggered the bug
and the precise symptoms of the bug:




Hi ! 

In the perl language, strings  can be delimited like 'string', but the
special sequence $' is not the beginning or end of a string. 

Unfortunately, Emacs will fontify 

$' == $val;

As the beginning of a string.  This makes the rest of the buffer badly
fontified. The workaround is to write

$' == $val; #'

But I can't do it on code which isn't mine. 


Note that this is fixed in xemacs. 

One  difference  between  emacs   and  xemacs  is  the  definition  of
perl-mode-syntax-table : In xemacs we have

  (modify-syntax-entry ?$ "\\" perl-mode-syntax-table)

Whereas emacs says

    (modify-syntax-entry ?$ "/" st)

But changing it to 

    (modify-syntax-entry ?$ "\\" st)

Doesn't seem to be sufficient. (maybe I did something wrong ?)



Recent input:
<up> M-f M-f M-f M-f <backspace> ' M-f M-b M-b M-f 
M-f <left> <left> <left> <left> <left> <left> <backspace> 
<backspace> w <return> M-x f o n t <tab> f o <tab> 
u <tab> <return> <C-tab> C-s f o n t - l o c k <right> 
C-s $ <backspace> \ <up> <up> <up> C-s ' C-s C-s C-s 
C-s C-s C-s C-s C-s C-s C-s C-s C-s C-s C-s C-s C-s 
C-s C-s C-s C-s C-s C-s C-s C-s C-s C-s C-s C-s C-s 
C-s C-s C-s <up> M-x r e p o <tab> r <tab> e <backspace> 
<tab> <return>

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-- 
Matthieu MOY                                    Ph. D Student
STMicroelectronics  -----  System and Architecture Technology
Verimag  --------  Synchronous Languages and Reactive Systems