From: rsc@swtch.com   
      
   > I'm not sure whether there is confusion between "leftmost longest   
   > match" and "longest leftmost match".  For me, "leftmost longest match"   
   > refers to the leftmost of the longest matches while "longest leftmost   
   > match" refers to the longest of the leftmost matches   
      
   In the context of regular expression search, "leftmost longest"   
   means the longest of the leftmost matches, not the leftmost   
   of the longest matches.  As you point out, it doesn't stand up   
   to syntactic scrutiny, but it's the standard term.   
      
   Rarely, one sees it written with a comma--leftmost, longest--to   
   encourage interpreting "longest" as the tiebreaker.   
      
   Russ   
      
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