[antlr-interest] .* consuming all input

[Bart Kiers]

On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 11:09 AM, Oliver Zeigermann <
oliver.zeigermann at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi, I am pretty sure wildcards are *greedy* by default and ...


+ and * are normally greedy, except when preceded by a DOT. From "the
Definitive ANTLR reference":

*What you really want to type, though, and what you will see in other*

*systems, is the terse notation: ’.*’ and ’.+’. Unfortunately, following the
> *

*usual convention that all subrules are greedy makes this notation useless.*

*Such greedy subrules would match all characters until the end of*

*file. Instead, ANTLR considers them idioms for “Match any symbol until*

*you see what lies beyond the subrule.” ANTLR automatically makes*

*these two subrules nongreedy. So, you can use ’.*’ instead of manually*

*specifying the option.*


See chapter 4, *Extended BNF Subrules*, page 86.

Regards,

Bart.