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From: Ben Hanson <jamin.hanson@googlemail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.compilers
Subject: Re: Regular expression string searching & matching
Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2018 13:52:53 -0700 (PDT)
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> /This/ actually worked for me (one character change):
>
> [/][*]([^*]|[*]+[^/])*[*]+[/]

Your modified regex produces the following state machine:

State: 0
  [/] -> 1

State: 1
  [*] -> 2

State: 2
  [^*] -> 2
  [*] -> 3

State: 3
  [^*/] -> 2
  [*] -> 4
  [/] -> 5

State: 4
  [^*/] -> 2
  [*] -> 4
  [/] -> 6

State: 5
  END STATE

State: 6
  END STATE
  [^*] -> 2
  [*] -> 3

Which will match

/***/a*/

in its entirety, when if should only match

/***/

Regards,

Ben
[Doesn't that depend on whether you interpret the END STATE in state 6 to stop even
if there's more input? -John]