Re^2: Regexes: finding ALL matches (including overlap)

[tlm]

Just out of curiosity, why not make the "inside of brackets" subexpression something more like

      <
         (?:
            [^y>]*
            y (?{ local $c = $c + 1 })
         )*
         .*?
      >  # Closing bracket not optional

? I see that the original allows for the possibility of unmatched left angle brackets, but I don't see why one would want this; i.e. I don't see why one would want to count the "y" in "<xyz", for example, but not the one in "xyz>".

[ikegami]

but I don't see why one would want this

I had to make a decision since I had insufficient information. If someone needs a different behaviour, they can change the code or ask me to do so. I decided to adopt Windows quoting behaviour. For example, dir "c:\program files works.

[kaif]

After all, Google has the same behavior.