$Id$

The two primary design objectives of OROMatcher (what is now
org.apache.oro.text.regex) are:
  1) be as compatible as possible with Perl
  2) be as efficient as possible in meeting objective 1 while
     maintaining clean object-oriented interfaces and avoiding extraneous
     features.

We're lagging behind on 1 right now.  The package is only Perl 5.003
compatible and needs to be updated to Perl 5.6.  Number 2 has no
bearing on how pretty the implementation is.  The external interfaces
to the library are what need to be pretty.  The implementation as it
stands is ugly ugly ugly and will likely remain so for the rest of
eternity because of the very nature of Perl regular expressions.

CODING CONVENTIONS

The source code follows a set of conventions that must be observed by
all new additions and modifications for the sake of maintaining a
consistent style.

  o Static final variable names must be all upper case, with word
    boundaries delimited by underscores.  For example:
	  public static final int MY_STATIC_FINAL_CONSTANT = 0;

  o All method names and variables that are not constants must start
    with a lower case letter, with word boundaries delimited by using an
    upper case letter to start the next word.  For example:
	  public void myMethodName() { }

  o All class names must start with an upper case letter followed by
    lower case letters, with word boundaries delimited by an upper
    case letter to start the next word.  For example:
	 public class MyClassName { }

  o Private members (variables and methods) must be prefixed by two
    underscores.  For example:
	  private int __myPrivateVariable;

  o Protected members (variables and methods) must be prefixed and
    suffixed by one underscore.  For example:
	  protected int _myProtectedVariable_;

  o Package local members (variables and methods) must be prefixed
    by one underscore.  For example:
	  int _myPackageVariable;

  o Public members (variables and methods) have no underscore prefixes
    or suffixes.  For example:
	  public int myPublicMethod() { return 1; }

  o All public and protected members (methods and variables) must be
    fully documented so that someone who does not have access to the
    source code will be able to use the methods, variables, and
    classes without ambiguity.

  o The code uses GNU-style indentation.  The best way to ensure this,
    is to use Emacs java-mode and add the following to your .emacs:
	(add-hook 'java-mode-hook '(lambda()
                             (c-make-styles-buffer-local)
                             (setq c-basic-offset 2)))