Re: newbie DFA question

[Josh Guilfoyle <jasta@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, Jun 03, 2003 at 09:25:48AM +1000, Peter D. Gray wrote:
> I am trying to write a new mode with syntax highlighting
> and have run into a snag in my understanding. It appears from
> the documentaion and some experimentation that
> the dfa regular expressions do not cross line
> boundaries.

I'm pretty sure that there is no way to do DFA syntax highlighting across
multiple lines without source hacking.  I at one point significantly hacked
the syntax highlighting to do something similar, although it was far too
inefficient to release unto anyone.  I have been trying to get the time to
rewrite it, but as of yet other projects are taking up too much of my time.

I have also been looking at the way vim does syntax highlighting and I'm
thinking more and more that is the way to go, although I fear how much work
would be involved to author such a system....

> 
> So my question is how do I hightlight an area of text
> bounded by some pattern, ignoring newlines.
> 
> I know jed can do this because in C mode /*   */
> comments work fine across line boundaries,
> even though I cannot see how from reading
> the cmode dfa rules. Any help appreciated.

The C mode does not use DFA by default, it uses a system of internally
hardcoded rules with primitive run-time control (the old way before DFA came
about).  To be quite honest, the syntax highlighting leaves a lot to be
desired.

> 
> Regards,
> pdg
> 
> 
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-- 
Josh Guilfoyle
http://jasta.gotlinux.org/

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