In <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Bart Lateur writes:
:I'll try to find that "thread" back.
This was my message:
http://www.mail-archive.com/perl6-language-regex%40perl.org/msg00354.html
:>I don't think changing /s is the right solution. I think this will
:>incline people to try and fix their problems by adding /s, without
:>realising that this changes the definition of every . in their
:>regexp as well.
:
:Perhaps. I do think that, in general, textual data falls into one of
:three categories:
:
: * text with possibly embedded newlines
: * text with no embedded newlines
: * text with an irrelevant newline at the very end.
:
:The '/s' option is for the 1st case. No '/s' for the 3rd. As for #2: you
:don't care.
I'd distinguish the first case further into 'the newlines are
significant' or not - /s is often desired for the first case,
and /m often for the second. And then I'd be tempted to repeat
the whole list, replacing 'newline' with 'record separator'.
I have to say I'm quite prejudiced against /s - I consider myself
reasonably knowledgeable about regexps, but on average about once
a month I find myself unsure enough about which is /m and which
is /s that I need to check the top of perlre to be sure. I think
we've appreciated for some time that it was a mistake to name them
as if they were opposites, but if anything I'd like to reduce the
need for them rather than to increase it.
Hugo
