Re: [bug-gawk] In Regexps, Extra (Unmatched) Closing Parentheses Does Not Produce Error Message, Treated Literally

[arnold]

Hi.

Things are indeed working as they're supposed to be. I will add a note
in the manual about how unmatched parentheses work.

Thanks,

Arnold

"Neil R. Ormos" <address@hidden> wrote:

> In a regexp, an unmatched left parenthesis
> provokes an error message.
>
>  > ./gawk '/(abc/{ print "ok" };'
>  gawk: cmd. line:1: error: Unmatched ( or \(: /(abc/
>
> An unmatched right parenthesis does not provoke an
> error message, and it must be matched literally.
>
>  > echo "/abc"  | gawk '/abc)/{ print "ok" };'
>  [no output]
>
>  > echo "/abc)" | gawk '/abc)/{ print "ok" };'
>  ok
>
> This behavior is the same as grep's, so I assume
> this is not an error, but rather an intended
> behavior of the regexp library...
>
> ... but it would be nice if there were some hint
> in the manual that a right parenthesis is treated
> as special only when there's a matching left
> parenthesis.  (Apologies in advance if it's there,
> and I just missed it.)
>