From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG  Thu Aug  2 13:17:43 2012
Return-Path: <owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG>
Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52])
	by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D3CD3106566C
	for <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>;
	Thu,  2 Aug 2012 13:17:43 +0000 (UTC)
	(envelope-from rwmaillists@googlemail.com)
Received: from mail-ey0-f182.google.com (mail-ey0-f182.google.com
	[209.85.215.182])
	by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 64C478FC08
	for <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>;
	Thu,  2 Aug 2012 13:17:43 +0000 (UTC)
Received: by eaak11 with SMTP id k11so1131350eaa.13
	for <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>;
	Thu, 02 Aug 2012 06:17:42 -0700 (PDT)
DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed;
	d=googlemail.com; s=20120113;
	h=date:from:to:subject:message-id:in-reply-to:references:x-mailer
	:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding;
	bh=OGiIjmOS5WCcTmwXuZ2GBHSNUBmYBuz7hwJnL3BE4lY=;
	b=sqiQE4cVp4gSglvwkeQP87VVwEllMpC4USyIUYr9r7eEPzTD9QGhHMcDAJJlUjiDgX
	1B9fdFjY0899ZIIJBYRr/AX0fIoic4Q51yUraMRHqnaTcUoBft7Lcc8vPA2+QOUw5vgd
	+ek7DyxpAl7B1lMoCQhTETBePRyIEOruyv2VMhmkyayOGetAtdUpY4/y0gl/6flbM1MB
	NFe3eQBUFPMzUZSzhwy6JXR2dGFKCVmj4YPzhb4yP9LOK+xR2hCCcuejJPwLnBEk37Y/
	tJ8TCmcGqDGQsZRk1m4Zu6lcEKzn0mohPOJQqWxQDecuV57LDTULHgIOKr3iOfH8TYBT
	ywJw==
Received: by 10.14.177.3 with SMTP id c3mr26761118eem.30.1343913462202;
	Thu, 02 Aug 2012 06:17:42 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from gumby.homeunix.com (87-194-105-247.bethere.co.uk.
	[87.194.105.247])
	by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id 8sm17363756eeg.16.2012.08.02.06.17.40
	(version=SSLv3 cipher=OTHER); Thu, 02 Aug 2012 06:17:41 -0700 (PDT)
Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2012 14:17:38 +0100
From: RW <rwmaillists@googlemail.com>
To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Message-ID: <20120802141738.62ef1e45@gumby.homeunix.com>
In-Reply-To: <743721353.9443.1343906452119.JavaMail.sas1@172.29.249.242>
References: <743721353.9443.1343906452119.JavaMail.sas1@172.29.249.242>
X-Mailer: Claws Mail 3.8.1 (GTK+ 2.24.6; amd64-portbld-freebsd8.3)
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Subject: Re: buggy awk regex handling?
X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5
Precedence: list
List-Id: User questions <freebsd-questions.freebsd.org>
List-Unsubscribe: <http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions>, 
	<mailto:freebsd-questions-request@freebsd.org?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions>
List-Post: <mailto:freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>
List-Help: <mailto:freebsd-questions-request@freebsd.org?subject=help>
List-Subscribe: <http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions>, 
	<mailto:freebsd-questions-request@freebsd.org?subject=subscribe>
X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2012 13:17:43 -0000

On Thu, 02 Aug 2012 13:20:52 +0200
kaltheat wrote:

> 
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I tried to replace three letters with three letters by awk using the
> sub-routine. I assumed that my regular expression does mean the
> following:
> 
> match if three letters of any letter of alphabet occurs anywhere in
> input
> 
> $ echo AbC | awk '{sub(/[[:alpha:]]{3}/,"cBa"); print;}'
> AbC
> 
> As you can see the result was unexpected.
> When I try doing it for at least one letter, it works:
> 
> $ echo AbC | awk '{sub(/[[:alpha:]]+/,"cBa"); print;}'
> cBa
> ...
> What am I doing wrong?
> Or is awk buggy?

Traditional awk implementations don't support {n}, but I think POSIX
implementations should.