summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/docs/fs.md
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
Diffstat (limited to 'docs/fs.md')
-rw-r--r--docs/fs.md17
1 files changed, 8 insertions, 9 deletions
diff --git a/docs/fs.md b/docs/fs.md
index c9b268b0..a2d8a9b2 100644
--- a/docs/fs.md
+++ b/docs/fs.md
@@ -288,21 +288,20 @@ the alternatives at that place mvzr takes the first that matches where sam
takes the longest (`/gam|gamma/` finds `gam`); in a search begun in the
middle of a line, `^` inside an alternation can match there; and in a
pattern that spans lines, `^`, `$` and `[^...]` keep mvzr's own meaning.
-mvzr backtracks without bound (`a*a*a*a*x` over a hundred `a`s takes a
-second), and a search holds the editor, so a pattern with more than four
-repeats (`*`, `+`, `{m,n}`) is refused as `regular expression has more than
-four repeats`, a long line is searched in overlapping windows (64 KB for
-a pattern with at most one repeat, 256, 96 and 40 bytes for two, three and
-four), where a match longer than half a window can be missed, and a
-search still running after 300 ms fails with `regular expression search
-took too long`.
+mvzr backtracks without bound of its own (`a?` twenty times then twenty
+`a`s is 2^20 steps from each place it tries), and a search holds the editor, so pardes patches a
+step budget into mvzr's matcher (build.zig): a search that spends it,
+about 300 ms, fails with `regular expression search took too long` rather
+than answer a match it is not sure of. Ordinary patterns spend a few
+thousand steps; what runs out is exponential backtracking, and a quadratic
+pattern over a very long line (`\s*(\w+)\s*=` over 20 KB of letters).
pardes has no regex engine of its own on purpose; these are its limits.
Normal mode's `s` and `S` search a selection the same way (src/regexp.zig
is the one place both call), so `^` there also means a line's start.
An address that does not evaluate fails the write with why: `bad address
syntax`, `no match for regexp`, `address out of range`, `bad regular
-expression` or one of the two costs above. A failed write to `addr` leaves no address at all, where acme
+expression` or `regular expression search took too long`. A failed write to `addr` leaves no address at all, where acme
keeps the old one: until an address is written or `addr` is truncated,
reading `addr`, and reading, writing or truncating `data` and `xdata`, fail
with `no address: the last one written to addr failed`, so a script that