Posted by Rik Wasmus on 09/07/07 12:55

On Fri, 07 Sep 2007 11:47:58 +0200, gosha bine <stereofrog@gmail.com>
wrote:

> On 07.09.2007 09:56 Rik Wasmus wrote:
>
>> ([^\2]+) #match one or more characters in match 3 that are NOT
>> in match 2
>
> [^\2] doesn't mean "negate group 2" as you and the manual people seem to
> think. It means "any character except that with ascii code 2".

Hmmz, a quick check indicates you're right, mea culpa.

The manual iq quite confusing at this point though:
"Inside a character class, or if the decimal number is greater than 9 and
there have not been that many capturing subpatterns, PCRE re-reads up to
three octal digits following the backslash, and generates a single byte
from the least significant 8 bits of the value. Any subsequent digits
stand for themselves. For example:
.....
\7
is always a back reference
\11
might be a back reference, or another way of writing a tab"

According to this, I'd expect it to be a back reference. Which brings me
to the question: what is the way to get a beckreference into a negated
character class, if there is one?

--
Rik Wasmus

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