Based on this discussion I suggest we simply declare that we're not going to
attempt to define what's meant by any concatenation of masking characters where
one masks characters and the other masks words.

Time's getting short, because we need to have an approved 105 definition before
we freeze the SRWU spec. So I'm going to post a proposal to the ZIG and if you
have more to say on this please continue the discussion there.

I'm going to suggest ** to mask words, an arbitrary choice as opposed to |. If
you prefer | post your preference to the ZIG (though I assume nobody cares other
than Rob and I, since nobody has spoken up).

--Ray



Robert Sanderson wrote:

> > > Also, is '***foobar':
> > > 1.  '(**)(*)foobar' which would match 'fred bertfoobar'
> > > 2.  '(*)(**)foobar' which would match 'fredbert foobar' but not the above
> > > I'm sticking by '|' personally.
>
> > Well even though I don't buy either example (the "?" inference isn't
> > necessary, and '(*)(**)foobar' would indeed match 'fred bertfoobar' --
> > the first * would match the string 'fred bert') rather than debate this
>
> Hmmm.
>
> This applies to | as well. I would have said that '*|foo' would match any
> number of characters, followed by any number of words, and then the _word_
> foo.
>
> So '?|foo' would match 'a foo' 'z bar foo' 'foo' but not '3foo' as foo
> isn't a word.
>
> If this isn't the case, then there's no issue with ** as you say.
>
> Rob
>
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