Re: :alnum: broken?

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Paul Eggert <address@hidden>
> Date: Fri, 28 Feb 2020 12:25:56 -0800
> Cc: address@hidden, address@hidden, address@hidden
> 
> On 2/28/20 12:09 PM, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > The regexp specification is not an Emacs-only feature, and I don't
> > think we should invent a variant of regexp spec where these particular
> > regexps are disallowed.
> 
> It would not be an invention of Emacs. It is a variant used in Gnu grep 
> (and GNU grep surely does more regexp processing than Emacs does, if we 
> look at all the world's computation), and it works fine there. So even 
> if we took a strict stance against invention in Emacs regexps (a stance 
> that we haven't taken in the past), that stance would not preclude the 
> proposed change.
> 
> > the particular reason for which you propose this change sounds
> > backwards to me.
> 
> The goal of this change is to improve the reliability of Elisp code, by 
> having Emacs reject invariably-incorrect regexps. It's not "backwards" 
> to improve reliability.

I suggest that we agree to disagree on this.

A couple of solutions was proposed that could be regarded as
compromises, and allow us to flag these suspicious regexps in at least
some of the use cases.  I'm okay with those proposals, but not with
the radical one you described.