After using re2c, I actually think it should have been built into C. Why? - Because Ken Thompson was co-inventor of C, and he ALSO brought regular languages t

After using re2c, I actually think it should have been built into C. Why? - Because Ken Thompson was co-inventor of C, and he ALSO brought regular languages to computing. IIRC he basically wrote the first version of grep, and compilers like re2c use the same automata-based methods as the original grep. https://www.oilshell.org/archive/Thompson-1968.pdf https://www.oilshell.org/archive/Thompson-1968.pdf - Because C is really bad at string processing. Regular languages would be a huge improvement. Looking through the implementation of most shells should convince of you that. Thompson also wrote the very first Unix shell, of course! https://www.oilshell.org/blog/2021/08/history-trivia.html https://www.oilshell.org/blog/2021/08/history-trivia.html