Bruce > ... GNAT has a package that will
      > give you SPITBOL patterns, which are a superset of what Perl gives
      > you (GNAT.Spitbol.Patterns)...

Sorry, SPITBOL patterns are not a superset of awk/Perl/un*x/cshell
regular expressions. Spitbol is a different language than the awk
regular expressions. For example, the plus sign means very different
things in the two languages.

It is theoretically possible to program a parser and a backend which
invokes appropriate SPITBOL patterns corresponding to each awk
regular expression. However, that is not a trivial parser and
backend to design and debug. Therefore, it should not be said
that SPITBOL patterns are a superset of awk patterns.

Rather it should be said that SPITBOL is a different, but more
powerful, pattern recognition capability than awk regular expressions.

Please tell me I am wrong and that an awk regular expression
parser is available that implements regular expressions via
gnat.spitbol, or via any other means. The Ada community
sorely needs to point at the existence of this facility.

Mike Brenner