[ale] VI vs perl RE question

[Geoffrey]

Joe Knapka wrote:
> Geoffrey wrote:
> 
> 
>>Joe Knapka wrote:
>> 
>>
>>
>>>Jim wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>   
>>>
>>>
>>>>I'm trying to use vi to search for something enclosed in quotes, using 
>>>>perl RE I get a hit with $var =~/"(.*?)"/;  But using the same re in vi 
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>     
>>>>
>>>
>>>So this is, "a quote, possibly followed by something, followed by 
>>>another quote".
>>>(The question mark is redundant, since * already means "0 or more 
>>>occurrences".)
>>>   
>>>
>>
>>I would expect that the ? says 'at least one character.'
>> 
>>
> 
> In vi and [e]grep, "?" means "the preceding expression may or may not be 
> present". It
> Perl, it apparently means "don't be greedy", though it really surprises 
> me that such a
> fundamental piece of RE syntax would be different in Perl. So the ? in 
> the original
> (Perl) RE was not redundant; it accomplishes what [^"]* does in the 
> non-Perl case:
> stopping at the next quote encountered.

To add to the confusion, I was thinking of shell re, that is:

ls .??*

will list all files that begin with a dot, have at least two characters 
following the dot, as in:

.zsh
.ksh

But not:

.e

Sorry for the posting before engaging brain...

-- 
Until later, Geoffrey