special host matching syntax for (a.b or *.a.b)

[al_9x]

This is a common enough pattern to deserve special syntactic sugar.

*a.b is not correct as it marches ha.b
^(.*\.)?a\.b$ is correct but overkill for a simple concept
how about .a.b to match (a.b or *.a.b)

[Giorgio Maone]

Sounds like a neat idea, thanks.

[Giorgio Maone]

Done in 1.9.9.49.

[al_9x]

Done in 1.9.9.49.

I tried it in abe (accept from), resulted in a syntax error (no viable alternative at character '.')

I guess this disables all the rules? There should be an alert of some kind. I thought the new syntax was working because the request was allowed but it was allowed because the rules could not be parsed and were not active.

[Giorgio Maone]

Done in 1.9.9.49.

I tried it in abe (accept from), resulted in a syntax error (no viable alternative at character '.')

It's actually a current limit in ABE's grammar which I overlooked, sorry.
The AddressMatcher shortcut is working fine (e.g. in HTTPS enforcing or in Clickjacking exceptions), but ABE can't parse the whole rule because its grammar doesn't allow site patterns to start with "." (yet).
Will be fixed in next dev build.

[al_9x]

Do you think it's worth having an alert when abe parsing fails? I'd like to know if the rules aren't active.

[Giorgio Maone]

Do you think it's worth having an alert when abe parsing fails? I'd like to know if the rules aren't active.

Doesn't it get highlighted in red when a parsing error happens?

[al_9x]

Do you think it's worth having an alert when abe parsing fails? I'd like to know if the rules aren't active.

Doesn't it get highlighted in red when a parsing error happens?

I wasn't clear when the rules were parsed, is it only when the option dialog is opened or focused?

If so, then there is no need for an alert, but when closing the options and there is an error you should switch to it and not close. Otherwise you can (modify, open, close) or (open, modify, close) without seeing the error.

[Giorgio Maone]

I wasn't clear when the rules were parsed, is it only when the option dialog is opened or focused?

Yes. I can try adding an alert in that phase, if an error is found (keeping the highlight).

[Giorgio Maone]

Fixed in 1.9.9.50