How can I do PCRE-y stuff in Lua Patterns?

["Soni L." <fakedme@...>]

I have this hexchat module:

------
local hexchat = hexchat

hexchat.register("Fancy Input", "1.1.0", "Just input hacks.")

local PATTERN = '%f[^ \0]<<([^ ].-)>>%f[ \0] ?'

hexchat.hook_command(nil, function(word, word_eol)
    local msg = word_eol[1]
    if not msg:find(PATTERN) then return end
    local channel = hexchat.get_info("channel")
    hexchat.command("quote PRIVMSG " .. channel .. " :" .. 
msg:gsub(PATTERN, '\1ACTION %1\1'))
    local NICK, MODE, TEXT = hexchat.get_info("nick"), nil, ""
    for user in hexchat.iterate("users") do
      if hexchat.nickcmp(user.nick, NICK) == 0 then
        MODE = user.prefix
      end
    end
    hexchat.emit_print("Your Message", NICK, msg:gsub(PATTERN, 
'\x1D%1\x1D '), MODE, TEXT)
    return hexchat.EAT_ALL
  end, nil, hexchat.PRI_LOWEST)

hexchat.print("Fancy Input loaded")
------

And it works pretty good, except for e.g. "test <<thing>>" which gets 
sent as "test \1ACTION thing\1" and I'd rather it be sent as 
"test\1ACTION thing\1".

I realize this may not be possible, in which case, well, it's only one 
byte so not a big deal, but I still thought I'd ask because I never 
really used frontier pattern before and I think it's awesome that I can 
even do what I'm currently doing. :P

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