[gedit-list] Syntax coloring bug with perl

[Doug McNutt <douglist macnauchtan com>]

There is a problem with syntax coloring for perl.  I'm now on the 
most recent ubuntu 8 distribution of gedit which is 2.24.2.

It appears that the << operator for "shift left" is being confused 
with the << redirection  that introduces a HERE document inside of 
perl.  The result it that << starts a block of text that continues 
until the next blank line which I believe is sensed as the end of 
block that follows a line like

$seed = $seed << 2;

I expect the variable $seed to be shifted left two bits and that 
happens OK. It's the coloring that is all messed up until a blank, 
not a comment, line is found. (That's likely because there is no text 
after the << other than the trailing ;)

I had a look at /usr/share/gtksourceview-2.0/language-specs/perl.lang 
and there are two places where "&lt;&lt;" appears and they correspond 
to the shift operator and the HERE redirector. I sort of believe that 
the problem is an insufficiently precise regular expression 
describing the redirector syntax in this line.

<start>&lt;&lt;\'(?P&lt;HDB&gt;\%{here-doc-bound-char}*)\'</start>

But programming by experiment is at best dangerous and I need some 
answers to keep me out of trouble:

1. Is the XML file that is perl.lang documented anywhere? Is it part 
of gedit or some other operation? It does not seem to reside in a 
location owned by gedit.

2. Are the regular expressions precisely the same as those in perl's 
Camel Book? If not where are they documented?

3. I can't compile gedit yet on my 64 bit ubuntu box but I can read 
code. Can I have a pointer to the source file that reads the 
perl.lang file? It is part of gedit or is it really part of the Gtk? 
Has anything changed in 2.26 that relates to this problem?

4. When is perl.lang read? Can I keep gedit running while I use gedit 
itself to edit the language file and test in another window?

5. Is there a place where I can find a structured list of 
dependencies that will help me prepare ubuntu for compiling gedit on 
my 64 bit machine? The errors go by so fast that I just can't seem to 
get everything I need and one-at-a-time builds are not getting me 
there.
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