Hi everybody,

We noticed that the LPI Essentials V1.5 still have the following item:
in: 3.2 Searching and Extracting Data from Files
under: Key Knowledge Areas
       Basic Regular Expressions using ., [ ], *, and ? 

The problem is that '?' is not part of the Basic Regular Expressions
at all, so this requirement is a contradiction in terms.

The '?'is a part of the Extended Regular Expressions, but i.m.h.o.
things get too complicated for a beginners level if we have to
touch on the difference between thasee two.

Just a few examples, exercising this '?' meaning: "zero or
one of the preceding", and using curly brackets to obtain
a similar "range from.. to..." effect:

BRE:  echo papa | grep 'papa?'
        -> no output
ERE: echo papa | grep -E 'papa?'
        -> output: papa
BRE: echo papa | grep 'papa\{0,1\}'
        -> output papa
ERE: echo papa | grep -E 'papa{0,1}'
        -> output papa

My suggestion: drop the '?' (and don't introduce the curly brackets).

However: I dearly miss the ^ and $ anchors, and in my opinion
the [^....] is indispensable as well.

Hendrik-Jan
-- 
Hendrik-Jan Thomassen     <h...@atcomputing.nl>
AT Computing
Linux/UNIXperts,
opleiders & oplossers     Tel +31 24 352 72 82
Kerkenbos 1238            Tel cursussecretariaat: +31 24 352 72 72
6546 BE  Nijmegen         Fax +31 24 352 72 92
i...@atcomputing.nl       www.atcomputing.nl

'If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.'

_______________________________________________
lpi-examdev mailing list
lpi-examdev@lpi.org
http://list.lpi.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lpi-examdev

Reply via email to