Re: gawk3.0.6

[Ulrich Drepper]

Robert Katz <address@hidden> writes:

>     $ gawk '/*/' /dev/null
>     $ print $?
>     0
> 
> I believe the gawk line should fail.  The regular expression is
> missing an operand.   The '*' must modify something, but it doesn't.


No.  Read POSIX (or if you have, the Austin group standard draft).  If
* is used as the first character (possibly after a leading ^) it
looses the special meaning.  This is true for BREs and EREs.

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