[Patch] Whole regex refactoring and current status

[Paolo Carlini]

Hi,

>So flag_type shall not be the same as size_t. I don't know if when I
>switch flag_type from unsigned int to, say, unsigned short, conflicts
>will appear in 16bit archtectures.

Well 16-bit archs aren't really supported these days, as long as the c++ runtime is concerned. Thus if unsigned short works let's go with it and move on. In any case, we don't have to make a super final decision, but breaking 32 bit is bad.

In general, I would recommend being careful with adding templated containers, remember that eventually we want to have a lot of code in *.cc files and instantiations will be a big big annoyance.

Paolo