bug#3001: 23.0.92; doc for regexp construct (?:
"Drew Adams" <[email protected]>
| Newsgroups | gmane.emacs.bugs,gmane.emacs.pretest.bugs |
|---|---|
| Message-ID | <[email protected]> |
Emacs calls regexp groups that use the grouping construct "(?:" "shy groups". I don't get the impression that that is a common term for this construct, outside Emacs. Googling "shy group" shows only Emacs hits. Googling and searching for regexp groups shows that terms such as "non-capturing group" and "unnumbered group" are more typically used for "(?:". And the Emacs doc for "(?:" even explains it as an unnumbered group. It doesn't explain or hint at the meaning of "shy" at all. This seems like a poor choice of words. "Shy" might already have become the Emacs "traditional" terminology, so that it can't easily be replaced (some people will look for it). But at least some explanation of the use of the word "shy" is in order, if only for mnemonic purposes. What were you thinking? ;-) (Perhaps it is translated from some other language, where it has more than one meaning?) More importantly, this construct does not appear to be indexed in the manual. It should be indexed under "(: in regexp", as well as under "regexp non-capturing group" and "regexp unnumbered group" - and of course "regexp shy group", if that term is kept. In GNU Emacs 23.0.92.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600) of 2009-03-30 on SOFT-MJASON Windowing system distributor `Microsoft Corp.', version 5.1.2600 configured using `configure --with-gcc (3.4)'