Subj : Re: Regexp problem since Moz 1.6
To   : Julien Queinnec <j.queinnec@comidoc.fr>
From : Brendan Eich <brendan@meer.net>
Date : Tue Feb 10 2004 11:07 am

Julien Queinnec wrote:

>Hello
>
>I have a problem with Mozilla 1.6 that I have not with the previous version 
>of Mozilla (and Netscape 7.*)
>  
>

Trivial tests work for me in 1.6b -- can you please give a reduced but 
complete testcase?

Copy-paste from a js shell session today:

js> /\*/
/\*/
js> /\*/('===*=')
*
js> /\\*/('===*=')


>I suppose that the problem comes from the correct of the bug 85721 
>(http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=85721 "Regexp performance 
>degraded from 4.7").
>  
>

Possibly -- I had to make a number of followup fixes after that bug's 
patch landed.  Have you tested the latest (trunk) Mozilla, js, or xpcshell?

>I tried using regexp to replace the "*" character. 
>
>For Internet Explorer, I use the string "\\*"
>

That should not be necessary, unless you mean that you are passing 
exactly that string literal to the RegExp constructor -- but again, you 
don't give a testcase, so we are left guessing.

> and for Mozilla before 1.6, I 
>use the string "\*" to find and defined the * character.
>
>With Mozilla 1.6, using the same string than in Mozilla 1.5 (\*) don't work 
>and I have the message (in javascript console) Error : invalid quantifier *
>  
>

Sounds like a bug; wish I could reproduce it.

/be

.