Memories of days past... Python had several regular expression implementations before, one of which was called "regex".
But I would rather not have a new module -- I would much rather have a flag specifying the new (backwards incompatible) syntax/semantics. The flag would have a long name (e.g. re.NEW_SYNTAX), a short name (e.g. re.N) and an inline syntax, "(?n)...". --Guido On Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 7:58 PM, Brett Cannon <br...@python.org> wrote: > > > On Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 14:10, MRAB <pyt...@mrabarnett.plus.com> wrote: >> >> Hi all, >> >> I'm back on the regex module after doing other things and I'd like your >> opinion on a number of matters: >> >> Firstly, the current re module has a bug whereby it doesn't split on >> zero-width matches. The BDFL has said that this behaviour should be >> retained by default in case any existing software depends on it. My >> question is: should my regex module still do this for Python 3? >> Speaking personally, I'd like it to behave correctly, and Python 3 is >> the version where backwards-compatibility is allowed to be broken. >> > > If it is a separate module under a different name it can do the proper > thing. People will just need to be aware of the difference when they import > the module. > >> >> Secondly, Python 2 is reaching the end of the line and Python 3 is the >> future. Should I still release a version that works with Python 2? I'm >> thinking that it could be confusing if new regex module did zero-width >> splits correctly in Python 3 but not in Python 2. And also, should I >> release it only for Python 3 as a 'carrot'? >> > > That's totally up to you. There is practically no chance of it getting into > the 2.x under the stdlib at this point since 2.7b1 is coming up and this > module has not been out in the wild for a year (to my knowledge). If you > want to support 2.x that's fine and I am sure users would appreciate it, but > it isn't necessary to get into the Python 3 stdlib. > >> >> Finally, the module allows some extra backslash escapes, eg \g<name>, in >> the pattern. Should it treat ill-formed escapes, eg \g, as it would have >> treated them in the re module? >> > > If you want to minimize the differences then it should probably match. As I > said, since it is a different name to import under it can deviate where > reasonable, just make sure to clearly document the deviations. > -Brett > >> >> Thanks >> _______________________________________________ >> Python-Dev mailing list >> Python-Dev@python.org >> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev >> Unsubscribe: >> http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/brett%40python.org > > > _______________________________________________ > Python-Dev mailing list > Python-Dev@python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev > Unsubscribe: > http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/guido%40python.org > > -- --Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido) _______________________________________________ Python-Dev mailing list Python-Dev@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com
