Just to be clear, I really do understand, and respect, your feelings. It's a tool you would like to continue using because you are familiar with it. My opinion is just that, my opinion. And, in my shops I can enforce my opinion. :-) I was not criticizing the port, just tying to explain why it might not be of interest to many mainframe programmers. And why nobody bothered to download it. By saying why I was not interested in it.
Now, as to COBOL, we normally deal with non-text based numbers. Everything in the file is stored packed or binary, not as text. Once it is passed the "input program", the only need is to convert it back to text for reports. And we have simple PIC clauses to hand that conversion. As to the "input program", these have traditionally worked with input fields that do not have all the dashes, commas, and such. We started with keypunches (where the special characters were removed by the keypunch operator). We then moved to BMS screens (for CICS) where CICS had a built-in de-edit function. (Of course many shops wrote their own.) But, even then, we normally expected the return value to be just digits. Even as we move from CICS to Web, it's still under CICS with the existing tools already in place. We have been working this way for 30+ years. Regular expressions is relatively young. Do we need regular expressions in COBOL? I don't think so. Can you, and others, continue to try to evangelize about regular expressions? Yes you can. Maybe, some day, I will change my mind. I just doubt it. :-) Maybe you should start a thread: Why COBOL needs Regular Expressions. Tony Thigpen -----Original Message ----- From: [email protected] Sent: 03/26/2014 07:54 AM
I share your sentiment about vi which I consider to be a bug, not a feature. I agree that there could have been a better way to do pattern matching. The reality is that there are alternatives for vi, ranging from ISPF all the way to Notepad++ and many options in between, but in the same reality, if you need to do serious pattern matching, and I need to do it all the time, there is no viable alternative. The regex methodology is the one that took an hold on the world and became the Lingua Franca, the de-facto language of the trade. I came to the world of pattern matching when this was already a fact of life with I real chance to change it. Now, the reality is also that the only major programming languages that do not have access to regex functionality are COBOL and PL/1. All other major languages have this capability. And it is that deficiency that I intended to resolve . I am encouraged by those who expressed more positive feelings and will continue to push it. ZA Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android
