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Doug McIlroy's C++ Regular Expression Matcher

Introduction

This is Doug McIlroy's C++ regular expression matcher. He wrote it while still at Bell Labs, for Cfront 4.0.

This code was converted to C by Glenn Fowler for use in David Korn's AST package.

In 2003 Dr. McIlroy attempted to modernize it, but did not get very far.

In July of 2017, I convinced him to send me the code as-is. I did this because:

  • I wanted to see this code preserved somewhere public.
  • I have an interest in regular expression matchers.
  • I also wanted to try to modernize it, for at least C++ 98.

Contents

I have attempted to construct a Git repo to represent the code's history as close as I can reconstruct it. The initial commit should represent the state of the code as it was in 1998 when Dr. McIlroy left Bell Labs. The dates on the files are based on what his filesystem shows, as sent to me in email.

I have added a ChangeLog file that pretends to track the work, but of course this is my own invention.

The additional directory contains some additional files Dr. McIlroy sent me that seem to be part of his work to modernize the package in 2003, so I have dated the additional files as being from 2003.

The Background.txt file is an email from Doug McIlroy to the TUHS mailing list explaining why he started developing the package. I have included it here by permission.

Branches

The master branch has the original files in the initial commit. The additional files are in the second commit, and the third commit contains changes sent by Dr. McIlroy to compile on a modern Linux system.

One file was accidentally left out: array.c. This has been added witih a commit date matching what Dr. McIlroy shows in his file system. I have tagged this point in the code and also saved it aside in the original-code branch.

Similarly for the testgrep.sh and testsed.sh scripts, which have been added back into the code base.

Going forward will be my own work to modernize the package and to make it buildable using make instead of the Bell Labs mk tool.

Plans

Here are my thoughts:

  1. Rename C++ files to have a .cpp extension. (DONE)
  2. Update the Makefile from Dr. McIlroy. (DONE)
  3. Compile the code without warnings using g++, and if possible, also clang. (DONE, against versions 5, 7, and 8 of g++.)
  4. Make the code pass the original tests supplied by Dr. McIlroy. (DONE, courtesy of Russ Cox. I sincerely thank him.)
  5. Review the code and try to improve the use of C++.
Last updated:

Wed Aug 1 07:02:20 IDT 2018

Arnold Robbins arnold at skeeve.com