PCRE search: escape sequence support in replacements, UTF8 support (just a flag for libPCRE)

[vitalif]

mc uses glib for PCRE search by default.
that's incorrect, because glib does not support PCRE_UTF8 compile flag, so \w and other "localizable" regex instructions don't work as expected.
mc should use libpcre by default + PCRE_UTF8 flag.

Also, mc does not support escape sequences in replacement strings ("\n", "\t" and etc), but it should.

Attaching a patch implementing these features.

[vitalif]

patch for src/search/regex.c

[zaytsev]

How important is to remove these comments???

[slavazanko]

that's incorrect, because glib does not support PCRE_UTF8 compile flag, so \w and other "localizable" regex instructions don't work as expected.

What you mean? perl-compatible regexp'es of Glib library always turn on UTF-8 mode.

From ​http://library.gnome.org/devel/glib/stable/glib-Perl-compatible-regular-expressions.html:

Note that, unless you set the G_REGEX_RAW flag, all the strings passed 
to these functions must be encoded in UTF-8. The lengths and the positions
inside the strings are in bytes and not in characters, so, for instance, 
"\xc3\xa0" (i.e. "à") is two bytes long but it is treated as a single 
character. If you set G_REGEX_RAW the strings can be non-valid UTF-8 
strings and a byte is treated as a character, so "\xc3\xa0" is two bytes
and two characters long. 

Also, mc does not support escape sequences in replacement strings ("\n", "\t" and etc), but it should.

Show version of your mc, please:

mc -V

I have worked special sequences. Test case:

• run mcedit
• press SPACE key twice, type dddd; press ENTER key
• press TAB key twice, type dddd; press ENTER key
• go at top of editing file
• press F7 key
• enter '\t\tddd' into search string
• select 'Regular expression' search type
• press ENTER key

If no any matches found at this point - we will continue discuss.

[vitalif]

Я имел ввиду escape-последовательности в строке ЗАМЕНЫ, а не в строке, которую ищем - там-то они работают.
Тест - ввести в строку поиска например "\x0d", а в строку замены например "\n". Везде в тексте \r будет заменён на просто символ "n", что не есть логично.
Сейчас обновился до 4.7.0.1-1 из Debian'а, баг до сих пор присутствует.

[vitalif]

Replying to zaytsev:

How important is to remove these comments???

Why do you need to remove them?
Is documented code worse than undocumented?

[vitalif]

New version of patch

[zaytsev]

You seemed to remove them, that's why I asked. But it looks like your previous patch was reversed, so you actually added them. I think that the new patch is OK.

[vitalif]

This same patch, ported to git version 12eb8b62...

[vitalif]

Any progress here? Ticket is actual for the latest (git) version, so I posted a correct patch for it.

Comment 3 in english:
I mean escape sequence support inside _replacement_ strings, not inside the _search_ regex - of course they work inside regex.
Test is simple - enter, for example, "\x0d" as search string and "\n" as the replacement string, and \r will be replaced by just "n" character.

[slavazanko]

Created branch changeset:​1882_esc_seq_in_replace_field

Initial changeset:be964ddc1ff1eb181c2e28655211607c1202691d

Review, please.

[slavazanko]

vitalif, can you switch to branch and see my changes? Can you run 'make check' in branch?

I have created some unit tests for your algorithm... but I don't sure that algorithm is clean... or may be tests is wrong :)

[vitalif]

Despite of the fact that algorithm now ignores the absence of closing curly brace '}' (which probably isn't 100% correct), this should be checked in tests for replace_handle_esc_seq function, not process_escape_sequence - it is the replace_handle_esq_seq who decides whether it is an escape sequence or not.

Also, \x{4344} is usually a code for wide character (UTF-8), and not for "CD". So we can either ignore the higher bits, or generate wide character codes... The second would be convenient, but would also introduce a hard-coded UTF-8 charset.

[vitalif]

I've attached a patch addressing these issues...
Also it removes *next_char parameter from handle_esc_seq, I think it's pointless there and just adds a non-trivial interface.

[vitalif]

Check } curly braces, fix tests, add \x{4344} utf-8 wide chars in utf-8 match mode

[slavazanko]

Review branch, please

[slavazanko]

Branch was rebased. New initial changeset:aa2d0b07edcfc884f0d778eaa89c201094c43458

[slavazanko]

Merge changeset:ba09144ce5210c1ae5a07389d4de5085938601c3
Show commits in branch:

git log --pretty=oneline bb12a12..e1edfd7

[vitalif]

Sorry for silence, and big thanks for approving the patch :)