Reverse the order of the numeric range before adding it, to maintain compatibility with PCRE matching rules (even though I don't implement them, if I do in the future)

regex/range2regex.go

@@ -3,7 +3,9 @@ package regex
 import (
 	"fmt"
 	"math"
+	"slices"
 	"strconv"
+	"strings"
 )
 
 type numRange struct {
@@ -99,13 +101,11 @@ func range2regex(start int, end int) (string, error) {
 	// Last range - tmp to rangeEnd
 	ranges = append(ranges, numRange{tmp, rangeEnd})
 
-	regex := string(nonCapLparenRune)
+	regexSlice := make([]string, 0)
 	// Generate the regex
-	for i, rg := range ranges {
+	for _, rg := range ranges {
-		if i > 0 {
+		tmpStr := ""
-			regex += "|"
+		tmpStr += string(nonCapLparenRune)
-		}
-		regex += string(nonCapLparenRune)
 		startSlc := intToSlc(rg.start)
 		endSlc := intToSlc(rg.end)
 		if len(startSlc) != len(endSlc) {
@@ -113,14 +113,27 @@ func range2regex(start int, end int) (string, error) {
 		}
 		for i := range startSlc {
 			if startSlc[i] == endSlc[i] {
-				regex += string(rune(startSlc[i] + 48)) // '0' is ascii value 48, 1 is 49 etc. To convert the digit to its character form, we can just add 48.
+				tmpStr += string(rune(startSlc[i] + 48)) // '0' is ascii value 48, 1 is 49 etc. To convert the digit to its character form, we can just add 48.
 			} else {
-				regex += fmt.Sprintf("%c%c-%c%c", lbracketRune, rune(startSlc[i]+48), rune(endSlc[i]+48), rbracketRune)
+				tmpStr += fmt.Sprintf("%c%c-%c%c", lbracketRune, rune(startSlc[i]+48), rune(endSlc[i]+48), rbracketRune)
 			}
 		}
-		regex += ")"
+		tmpStr += ")"
+		regexSlice = append(regexSlice, tmpStr)
 	}
-	regex += ")"
+	// Each element of the slice represents one 'group'. Taking 0-255 as an example, the elements would be:
+	// 	1. 0-9
+	// 	2. 10-99
+	// 	3. 100-199
+	// 	4. 200-249
+	// 	5. 250-255
+	//
+	// The reason this is reversed before joining it, is because it is incompatible with the PCRE rule for matching.
+	// The PCRE rule specifies that the left-branch of an alternation is preferred. Even though this engine uses the POSIX
+	// rule at the moment (which prefers the longest match regardless of the order of the alternation), reversing the string
+	// has no downsides. It doesn't affect POSIX matching, and it will reduce my burden if I decide to switch to PCRE matching.
+	slices.Reverse(regexSlice)
+	regex := string(nonCapLparenRune) + strings.Join(regexSlice, "|") + ")"
 	return regex, nil
 
 }