To: Kenneth Tanzer <ktanzer@desc.org>
Cc: pgsql-docs@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: Section 9.6.3.5, Regular Expression Matching Rules 
In-reply-to: <41A8E9E9.6010709@desc.org> 
References: <41A3C6C6.2090605@desc.org> <1713.1101254499@sss.pgh.pa.us>
	<1846.1101255318@sss.pgh.pa.us> <41A4CAA5.2040908@desc.org>
	<22644.1101340967@sss.pgh.pa.us> <41A7ADA8.5080205@desc.org>
	<20226.1101512356@sss.pgh.pa.us> <41A8E9E9.6010709@desc.org>
Comments: In-reply-to Kenneth Tanzer <ktanzer@desc.org>
	message dated "Sat, 27 Nov 2004 12:56:09 -0800"
Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 15:39:35 -0500
Message-ID: <19967.1101674375@sss.pgh.pa.us>
From: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>

Kenneth Tanzer <ktanzer@desc.org> writes:
> Greediness is inherited from left to right, so that outer 
> subexpressions take precedence over their component subexpressions.  The 
> greediness of an RE is set by the first subexpression that is either 
> greedy or non-greedy. 

Isn't that a contradiction in terms?  I'd certainly think the term
"inheritance" means top-down, whereas the actual behavior is
bottom-up (except when "|" is involved).

Anyway, I don't think this explanation is materially better than what
we had.  ISTM the real lack in this section is examples to clarify the
implications of the rules, and you haven't added any ... in fact it
looks like you removed the examples that were there.

			regards, tom lane