tree 7df89b1bfd4b3e59d919b25258b2834d9c8ce74d
parent 048d75aa5f881235c88256b6d3fdaaaeadb5aa32
author Travis Cross <tc@traviscross.com> 1747312015 +0000
committer Travis Cross <tc@traviscross.com> 1747320877 +0000

Parse optionals and repeats without regexes

Rather than parsing optionals and repeats fully in the recursive
descent style, we were using regular expressions to do part of the
matching and parsing.  That's fine for what it is, but as we think
about extending the grammar language surrounding repeats further, it
might be more straightforward for this to be parsed in the more usual
way.  So let's do that.  Doing this also results in better and more
targeted errors when parsing malformed syntax.

We had been supporting a space between an expression and the optional
and repeat sigils `?`, `*`, and `+` (but not between an expression and
the `{a..b}` ranged repeat syntax).  In making this change, we drop
this support and adjust the affected productions.  We were only using
this in a handful of places, and the clarity of the productions seem
the same or better by removing these spaces.

We verified that, setting aside the removal of these spaces, the
rendered output of the Reference is byte identical before and after
this change.