A single regex cannot generate a variable number of backreferences. What do you think this is, Java? ¹{grin}

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker

¹The Java regex library I saw caused /(\w+)\s+)+/ to generate a variable number of backreferences, making it impossible to know exactly what part of the match you were looking at. Evil. They just don't get it.

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