Re: tips for writing regular expression interpreter/compiler?

jburgy@gmail.com wrote:
> [This is the original regular expression paper, describing the
> search in qed, a predececessor to Unix editors ed, ex and vi. -John]


As John notes, this is the origianl article on regular expressions by
Ken Thompson of Unix fame. Be warned that the algorithm is presented
in IBM 7094 assembly language, and compiles expressions so that each
assembly language label is effectively a state in the state machine.
It makes extensive use of the 7094's wide range of instructions
designed explicitly for writing self-modifying code, which was
standard practice back then. I'm not sure it's entirely worth reading
without a copy of the 7094 manual at hand, but it's a really good
article.


jeff

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