Kjetil Torgrim Homme writes:
[Tim Showalter]:
I implemented a mostly-linear time glob algorithm by implementing
minimal matching left-to-right. I am opposed to any semantic that
would result in pattern matching being fairly expensive
(specifically, any algorithm that results in * being recursive is
bad).
If I had done minimal-matching right-to-left, would the result
have been greedy? (This would resolve my objection.)
yes.
No. Consider the match for a*a in ababa: A minimal match takes aba no
matter whether it's right-to-left or left-to-right, a greedy one takes
ababa.
--Arnt