non-terminating regex match

[Maurizio Vitale]

Has to be something really stupid, but the following never finish
(running Python 2.5.1 (r251:54863, Jan 10 2008, 18:00:49)
[GCC 4.2.1 (SUSE Linux)] on linux2).

The intention is to match C++ identifiers, with or without namespace
qualification, with or without arguments (e.g. variables, functions and
macros).
The following should be accepted:
main
main(int,char**)
::main
std::cout
::std::cout
NDEBUG

Thanks for any help.
And yes, I'm a total beginner when it comes to Python, but it seems
very strange to me that a regex match on a finite length string
doesn't terminate
Regards,

Maurizio

#!/usr/bin/env python
# -*- Python -*-

import re

if __name__ == '__main__':
r = re.compile (
r'(?:(?P<scope>(?:(?:::)?\w+)*)::)?'
r'(?P<name>\w+)'
r'(?:\((?P<arguments>[^\)]*)\))?'
)
match = r.search ('WITH_ALOHA_EXCEPTION_HANDLERS')

[Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch]

On Wed, 02 Apr 2008 16:01:59 +0000, Maurizio Vitale wrote:

And yes, I'm a total beginner when it comes to Python, but it seems
very strange to me that a regex match on a finite length string
doesn't terminate

It does terminate, you just don't wait long enough. Try it with fewer
characters and then increase the identifier character by character and
watch the time of the runs grow exponentially.

Ciao,
Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch