[ale] OT: Lex pattern expression struggles

[joe at madewell.com (Joe Steele)]

On October 26, 2004, Jeff Layton wrote:
>
>    I'm struggling with a pattern expression for lex. I'm looking
> for an expression that handle an alphanumeric string of 1 to
> 8 characters (only letters and numbers) followed by at least
> one space and one of three keywords: "PARAM" "TABLE"
> or "UPDATE". I've tried several things with no success (I
> won't post them due to embarassment). Anyone have any
> suggestions?

Perhaps:

[[:alnum:]]{1,8} +(PARAM|TABLE|UPDATE)

--Joe