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  • { and } in regexps

{ and } in regexps

# Michael Day (15 years ago)

Browsers seem to allow { and } to occur in regexps unescaped, if the position does not conflict with their use as a quantifier. For example:

/foo|{bar}/

However, ES3 and ES5 forbid this, as PatternCharacter does not include { or } or any of the other significant punctuation.

Given that every new implementation ends up having to do what all the existing implementations do, is there any reason for the spec to differ?

Best ,

Michael

# Allen Wirfs-Brock (15 years ago)

I don't think so. See blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2010/08/25/chakra-interoperability-means-more-than-just-standards.aspx

Hopefully for Harmony somebody will take on the challenge of updating the RegExp spec. to reflect reality. We need a software archeologist to analyze the major browsers what the consensus spec. really is.

# Brendan Eich (15 years ago)

On Nov 12, 2010, at 8:08 AM, Allen Wirfs-Brock wrote:

I don't think so. See blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2010/08/25/chakra-interoperability-means-more-than-just-standards.aspx

Hopefully for Harmony somebody will take on the challenge of updating the RegExp spec. to reflect reality. We need a software archeologist to analyze the major browsers what the consensus spec. really is.

We have such an archeologist, in my opinion. See

blog.stevenlevithan.com

bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?emailassigned_to1=1&query_format=advanced&emailcc1=1&emaillongdesc1=1&bug_status=UNCONFIRMED&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=VERIFIED&bug_status=CLOSED&email1=steves_list&emailtype1=substring