On 01/07/2015 07:01 AM, Vincent Lefevre wrote:
> On 2014-12-11 11:34:20 -0800, Ray Andrews wrote:
>> Anyway, knowing that the star replaces the colons cracks it open.
> This is a bit old, but... When can an asterisk replace a colon?
> For instance, in:
> ...
> which have one or several missing colons. This is from the
> zshcompsys(1) man page.
>
> If an asterisk can match anything, there may be an ambiguity on
> which field some given word will match.
>
I'm glad I'm not the only guy who is puzzled by that.  I dunno
completion sorta works, and some people seem to understand
it, so I can't say much, but IMHO having a optional field
separator is madness.

first-name : last-name : job : fav. hockey team : city : vacation spot

Ray :*: Carpenter : Montreal
Ray : Andrews :*: Vancouver :*: Maui
:*: Andrews :*: Maui

... a bit hard to parse, but all 'true' if separators can be omitted.

Being just a mortal, this seems more tractable  to me:

:Ray::Carpenter:Montreal::Maui:
     I'm Ray, and Montreal is my hockey team

::Andrews:::Vancouver:Maui:
     I live in Vancouver

::Andrews:::::
     My last name is Andrews

:::Carpenter:::Maui:
     I'm a carpenter who vacations in Maui

:Montreal::
     Error! Not enough colons, there must be seven.