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6fc6e64b
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2025-03-26T10:35:22
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rules: Added extended wild cards <none>, <some> and <any>
Added the following wild cards to the rules file syntax, in addition
to the current `*` legacy wild card:
- `<none>`: Match *empty* value.
- `<some>`: Match *non-empty* value.
- `<any>`: Match *any* (optionally empty) value. Its behavior does not
depend on the context, contrary to the legacy wild card `*`.
This will enable writing much simpler rules, see [!764] for an example
of tricky rules in the `xkeyboard-config` project, that would benefit
from the new wild cards.
[!764]: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xkeyboard-config/xkeyboard-config/-/merge_requests/764
The verbose wild cards are preferred to single characters:
- More intuitive: self-explanatory.
- Does not steal syntax from other token.
- Extensible syntax, should we need it.
A previous proposal used the characters (`!`, `+`, `?`) for their
similarity with the corresponding syntax of regular expressions
(negative assertion & quantifiers), in line with `*`. But `!` is not
that intuitive after all and conflict with its role as section header.
Furthermore, `+` is also used as a merge mode. Finally, nothing beats
whole short words for readability.
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