All regular expressions in mode files were rewritten to use java.util.regex instead of gnu.regexp.
HASH_CHAR handling of
                xxx_REGEXP elements has been updated, as
                explained in the section called “The SPAN_REGEXP Tag”.
The EXCLUDE_MATCH attribute got
                superseded by MATCH_TYPE. The attribute
                values translate from TRUE to
                CONTEXT and from FALSE to
                RULE, respectively. For more information see
                the section called “The MATCH_TYPE Attribute”.
 NO_ESCAPE is now deprecated and ignored by the parsing engine.
               ESCAPE is now a valid attribute for SPAN and SPAN_REGEXP rules.