Stan Ryckman <stanr(_at_)sunspot(_dot_)tiac(_dot_)net> writes:
My theory was/is that avoiding parentheses would make the regexp engine
have less processing to do, since an opening "(" might start an arbitrarily
complicated sub-regexp, but I confess to having not checked the code or timing.
It takes the regexp parser slightly longer to parse, but as far as I
can tell, a group with no alternations (i.e., parens with no '|'
between them) and that doesn't have an operators applied to it (no '?',
'*', or '+' after the close paren) takes no longer to execute (that is,
match) than the same without the parens.
It's probably not of much consequence though.
Bingo!
Philip Guenther