static MMOPattern mmo2_parsePattern(S s) {
  // drop outer brackets and tokenize
  
  s = trim(tok_deRoundBracket(trim(s)));
  LS tok = javaTokWithBrackets(s);
  
  // commas (or) - "car, vehicle"
  
  LS l = tok_splitAtComma(tok);
  if (l(l) > 1)
    ret new MMOPattern.Or(lambdaMap mmo2_parsePattern(l));
    
  // plus (and) - "give + money"
  
  l = tok_splitAtPlus(tok);
  if (l(l) > 1)
    ret new MMOPattern.And(lambdaMap mmo2_parsePattern(l));
    
  // exclam (not) - "!something"
  
  if (startsWith(s, "!"))
    ret new MMOPattern.Not(mmo2_parsePattern(dropFirst(s)));
    
  // ^... - match start of line
  
  if (startsWith(s, "^"))
    ret new MMOPattern.StartOfLine(mmo2_parsePattern(dropFirst(s)));
    
  // ...$ - match end of line
  
  if (endsWith(s, "$"))
    ret new MMOPattern.EndOfLine(mmo2_parsePattern(dropLast(s)));
    
  // ...*0.5 - weighted pattern
  
  l = tok_splitAtAsterisk(tok);
  if (l(l) == 2)
    ret new MMOPattern.Weighted(parseDouble(second(l)), mmo2_parsePattern(first(l)));

  // phrase (possibly quoted)
  
  ret new MMOPattern.Phrase(unquote(s), isQuoted(s));
}