Re: XML/HTML-specific ? and ? operators? (was Re: RFC 145 (alternate approach))
On 06 Sep 2000 18:04:18 -0700, Randal L. Schwartz wrote: I think the -1 indexing for "end of array" came from there. Or at least, it was in Perl long before it was in Python, and it was in Icon before it was in Perl, so I had always presumed Larry had seen Icon. Larry? Do not assume that these are the only languages that exist. There must be hundreds of languages; see the famous "Free Compilers" list (http://www.idiom.com/free-compilers/). At least a few of these do support -1 for last array index. p.s. Shall I bring up the "@array[2 .. -1] should do the proper thing" requested feature again? Oops, I just did. I think implementing this basically requires lazy evaluation of the (2 .. -1) thing, so when it eventually needs to be turned into a list of numbers, [a] it is aware of the fact that it's in an "list indexing context", and [b] it knows the number of list items. And yes, some of the other languages do properly support this feature. -- Bart.
Re: XML/HTML-specific ? and ? operators? (was Re: RFC 145 (alternate approach))
On Wed 06 Sep, Mark-Jason Dominus wrote:
I've been thinking the same thing. It seems to me that the attempts to
shoehorn parsers into regex syntax have either been unsuccessful
(yielding an underpowered extension) or illegible or both.
SNOBOL:
parenstring = '(' *parenstring ')'
| *parenstring *parenstring
| span('()')
This is not exactly the same, but I tried a direct translation:
$re = qr{ \( (??{$re}) \)
| (??{$re}) (??{$re})
| (? [^()]+)
}x;
I think what is needed is something along the line of :
$re = qz{ '(' \$re ')'
| \$re \$re
| [^()]+
};
Where qz is some hypothetical new quoting syntax
Richard
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: XML/HTML-specific ? and ? operators? (was Re: RFC 145 (alternate approach))
On Thu, Sep 07, 2000 at 03:42:01PM -0400, Eric Roode wrote:
Richard Proctor wrote:
I think what is needed is something along the line of :
$re = qz{ '(' \$re ')'
| \$re \$re
| [^()]+
};
Where qz is some hypothetical new quoting syntax
Well, we currently have qr{}, and ??{} does something like your \$re.
Warning: radical ideas ahead.
What would be useful, would be to leave REs the hell alone; they're
great as-is, and are only getting hairier and hairier. What would be
useful, would be to create a new non-regular pattern-matching/parsing
"language" within Perl, that combines the best of Perl REs, lex,
SNOBOL, Icon, state machines, and what have you.
Agreed. "Yet another quoting construct", "yet another \construct",
"yet another (? construct". Argh, please, no. Make all the above and
all we've learned from Parse::RecDescent et alia to collide at light
speed and see what new cool particles will spring forth.
--
$jhi++; # http://www.iki.fi/jhi/
# There is this special biologist word we use for 'stable'.
# It is 'dead'. -- Jack Cohen
Re: XML/HTML-specific ? and ? operators? (was Re: RFC 145 (alternate approach))
- Original Message -
From: "Jonathan Scott Duff" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: XML/HTML-specific ? and ? operators? (was Re: RFC 145
(alternate approach))
How about qy() for Quote Yacc :-) This stuff is starting to look
more and more like we're trying to fold lex and yacc into perl. We
already have lex through (?{code}) in REs, but we have to hand-write
our own yacc-a-likes.
Though you can do cool stuff in (?{code}), I wouldn't quite call it lex.
First off we're dealing with NFA instead of DFA, and at the very least, that
gives you back-tracking. True, local's allow you to preserve state to some
degree. But the following is as close as I can consider (?{code}) a lexer:
sub lex_init {
my $str = shift;
our @tokens;
$str =~ / \G (?{ local @tokens; })
(?: TokenDelim(\d+) (?{ push @tokens, [ 'digit', $1 ] })
| TokenDelim(\w+) (?{ push @tokens, [ 'word', $1 ] })
)
/gx;
}
sub getNextToken { shift @tokens; }
I'm not even suggesting this is a good design. Just showing how akward it
is.
Other problems with the lexing in perl is that you pretty much need the
entire string before you begin processing, while a good lexer only needs the
next character. Ideally, this is a character stream. Already we're talking
about a lot of alteration and work here.. Not something I'd be crazy about
putting into the core.
-Michael
Re: XML/HTML-specific ? and ? operators? (was Re: RFC 145 (alternate approach))
Bart Lateur wrote: On 06 Sep 2000 18:04:18 -0700, Randal L. Schwartz wrote: I think the -1 indexing for "end of array" came from there. Or at least, it was in Perl long before it was in Python, and it was in Icon before it was in Perl, so I had always presumed Larry had seen Icon. Larry? I thought he got it from the substr function in CDC mainframe BASIC, which in which negative positions mean "from the end of the string"
Re: RFC 145 (alternate approach)
I'd suggest also, that (?[) (with no specified brackets) have the
default meaning
of the "four standard brackets" :
(?['('=')','{'='}','['=']',''='')
Note also the subtle syntax change. We are either dealing with strings
or with patterns. The consensus seems to be against patterns (I can
understand that). Given that, we need to quote the right hand side of
the = operator I think. The quotes on the left side would be optional,
I think.
Richard Proctor wrote:
On Tue 05 Sep, Nathan Wiger wrote:
Eric Roode wrote:
Now *that* sounds cool, I like it!
What if the RFC only suggested the addition of two new constructs, (?[)
and (?]), which did nested matches. The rest would be bound by standard
regex constructs and your imagination!
That is, the ?] simply takes whatever the closest ?[ matched and
reverses it, verbatim, including ordering, case, and number of
characters. The only trick would be a way to get what "reverses it"
means correct.
No ?] should match the closest ?[ it should nest the ?[s bound by any
brackets in the regex and act accordingly.
Also this does not work as a definition of simple bracket matching as you
need ( to match ) not ( to match (. A ?[ list should specify for each
element what the matching element is perhaps
(?[( = ),{ = }, 01 = 10)
sort of hashish in style.
Perhaps the brackets could be defined as a hash allowing (?[%Hash)
Richard
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
--
David Corbin
Mach Turtle Technologies, Inc.
http://www.machturtle.com
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RFC 145 (alternate approach)
At 09:05 AM 9/6/00 -0400, David Corbin wrote:
I'd suggest also, that (?[) (with no specified brackets) have the
default meaning
of the "four standard brackets" :
(?['('=')','{'='}','['=']',''='')
Note also the subtle syntax change. We are either dealing with strings
or with patterns. The consensus seems to be against patterns (I can
understand that). Given that, we need to quote the right hand side of
the = operator I think. The quotes on the left side would be optional,
I think.
It would be useful (and increasingly more common) to be able to match
qr|\s*(\w+)([^]*)| to qr|\s*/\1\s*|, and handle the case where those
can nest as well. Something like
listmatch this with
list
/list not this but
/list this.
Richard Proctor wrote:
On Tue 05 Sep, Nathan Wiger wrote:
Eric Roode wrote:
Now *that* sounds cool, I like it!
What if the RFC only suggested the addition of two new constructs, (?[)
and (?]), which did nested matches. The rest would be bound by standard
regex constructs and your imagination!
That is, the ?] simply takes whatever the closest ?[ matched and
reverses it, verbatim, including ordering, case, and number of
characters. The only trick would be a way to get what "reverses it"
means correct.
No ?] should match the closest ?[ it should nest the ?[s bound by any
brackets in the regex and act accordingly.
Also this does not work as a definition of simple bracket matching as you
need ( to match ) not ( to match (. A ?[ list should specify for each
element what the matching element is perhaps
(?[( = ),{ = }, 01 = 10)
sort of hashish in style.
Perhaps the brackets could be defined as a hash allowing (?[%Hash)
Richard
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
--
David Corbin
Mach Turtle Technologies, Inc.
http://www.machturtle.com
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
XML/HTML-specific ? and ? operators? (was Re: RFC 145 (alternate approach))
It would be useful (and increasingly more common) to be able to match qr|\s*(\w+)([^]*)| to qr|\s*/\1\s*|, and handle the case where those can nest as well. Something like listmatch this with list /list not this but /list this. I suspect this is going to need a ?[ and ?] of its own. I've been thinking about this since your email on the subject yesterday, and I don't see how either RFC 145 or this alternative method could support it, since there are two tags - and / - which are paired asymmetrically, and neither approach gives any credence to what's contained inside the tag. So tag would be matched itself as " matches ". What if we added special XML/HTML-parsing ? and ? operators? Unfortunately, as Richard notes, ? is already taken, but I will use it for the examples to make things symmetrical. ? = opening tag (with name specified) ? = closing tag (matches based on nesting) Your example would simply be: /(?list)[\s\w]*(?list)[\s\w]*(?)[\s\w]*(?)/; What makes me nervous about this is that ? and ? seem special-case. They are, but then again XML and HTML are also pervasive. So a special-case for something like this might not be any stranger than having a special-case for sin() and cos() - they're extremely important operations. The other thing that this doesn't handle is tags with no closing counterpart, like: br Perhaps for these the easiest thing is to tell people not to use ? and ?: /(?p)[\s*\w](?:br)(?)/; Would match p Some stuffbr /p Finally, tags which take arguments: div align="center"Stuff/div Would require some type of "this is optional" syntax: /(?div\s*\w*)Stuff(?)/ Perhaps only the first word specified is taken as the tag name? This is the XML/HTML spec anyways. -Nate
Re: XML/HTML-specific ? and ? operators? (was Re: RFC 145 (alternate approach))
Nathan Wiger wrote: It would be useful (and increasingly more common) to be able to match qr|\s*(\w+)([^]*)| to qr|\s*/\1\s*|, and handle the case where those can nest as well. Something like listmatch this with list /list not this but /list this. I suspect this is going to need a ?[ and ?] of its own. I've been thinking about this since your email on the subject yesterday, and I don't see how either RFC 145 or this alternative method could support it, since there are two tags - and / - which are paired asymmetrically, and neither approach gives any credence to what's contained inside the tag. So tag would be matched itself as " matches ". Actually, in one of my responses I did outline a syntax which would handle this with reasonably ease, I think. If the contents of (?[) is considered a pattern, then you can define a matching pattern. Consider either of these. m:(?[list]).*?(?]/list): or m:(?['list' = '/list').*(?]):# really ought to include (?i:) in there, but left out for readablity or more generically m:(?['\w+' = '/\1').*(?]): I'll grant you it's not the simplest syntax, but it's a lot simpler than using the 5.6 method... :) What if we added special XML/HTML-parsing ? and ? operators? Unfortunately, as Richard notes, ? is already taken, but I will use it for the examples to make things symmetrical. ? = opening tag (with name specified) ? = closing tag (matches based on nesting) Your example would simply be: /(?list)[\s\w]*(?list)[\s\w]*(?)[\s\w]*(?)/; What makes me nervous about this is that ? and ? seem special-case. They are, but then again XML and HTML are also pervasive. So a special-case for something like this might not be any stranger than having a special-case for sin() and cos() - they're extremely important operations. The other thing that this doesn't handle is tags with no closing counterpart, like: br Perhaps for these the easiest thing is to tell people not to use ? and ?: /(?p)[\s*\w](?:br)(?)/; Would match p Some stuffbr /p Finally, tags which take arguments: div align="center"Stuff/div Would require some type of "this is optional" syntax: /(?div\s*\w*)Stuff(?)/ Perhaps only the first word specified is taken as the tag name? This is the XML/HTML spec anyways. -Nate -- David Corbin Mach Turtle Technologies, Inc. http://www.machturtle.com [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RFC 145 (alternate approach)
On Tue 05 Sep, Nathan Wiger wrote:
"normal" "reversed"
-- ---
103301
99aa99
(( ))
+ +
{{[!_ _!]}}
{__A1( )A1__}
That is, when a bracket is encountered, the "reverse" of that is
automatically interpreted as its closing counterpart. This is the same
reason why qq// and qq() and qq{} all work without special notation.
So we can replace @^g and @^G with simple precendence rules, the same
that are actually invoked automatically throughout Perl already.
(?[( = ),{ = }, 01 = 10)
sort of hashish in style.
I actually think this is redundant, for the reasons I mentioned above.
I'm not striking it down outright, but it seems simple rules could make
all this unnecessary.
I dont think you will ever come up with a set of rules that will satisfy
everybody all the time. what about html comments !-- , -- are they
brackets? What about people doing 66/99 pairs? The best you could
achieve is a set of default rules as you have suggested AND a way
of overriding them with an explicit hash of what is the closing
bracket for each opening bracket.
The two methods depend on what follows the (?[ is it a hash or not.
For the "Default" method the list of brackets could be as has been
suggested a regex, or perhaps a simple comma separated list. For this
you should define what is the "reverse" of each character, at
least for latin-1, what do you do about the full utf-8...? An \X type
construct that covers all the common brackets might be a usefull addition
({?
If there is a hash, the hash supplies both the brackets to be matched and
their corresponding close brackets
Richard
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: XML/HTML-specific ? and ? operators? (was Re: RFC 145 (alternate approach))
- Original Message - From: "Jonathan Scott Duff" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: XML/HTML-specific ? and ? operators? (was Re: RFC 145 (alternate approach)) On Wed, Sep 06, 2000 at 08:40:37AM -0700, Nathan Wiger wrote: What if we added special XML/HTML-parsing ? and ? operators? What if we just provided deep enough hooks into the RE engine that specialized parsing constructs like these could easily be added by those who need them? -Scott Ok, I've avoided this thread for a while, but I'll make my comment now. I've played with several ideas of reg-ex extensions that would allow arbitrary "parsing". My first goal was to be able to parse perl-like text, then later a simple nested parentheses, then later nested xml as with this thread. I have been able to solve these problems using perl5.6's recursive reg-ex's, and inserted procedure code. Unfortunately this isn't very safe, nor is it 'pretty' to figure out by a non-perl-guru. What's more, what I'm attempting to do with these nested parens and xml is to _parse_ the data.. Well, guess what guys, we've had decades of research into the area of parsing, and we came out with yacc and lex. My point is that I think we're approaching this the wrong way. We're trying to apply more and more parser power into what classically has been the lexer / tokenizer, namely our beloved regular-expression engine. A great deal of string processing is possible with perls enhanced NFA engine, but at some point we're looking at perl code that is inside out: all code embedded within a reg-ex. That, boys and girls, is a parser, and I'm not convinced it's the right approach for rapid design, and definately not for large-scale robust design. As for XML, we already have lovely c-modules that take of that.. You even get your choice. Call per tag, or generate a tree (where you can search for sub-trees). What else could you want? (Ok, stupid question, but you could still accomplish it via a customized parser). My suggestion, therefore would be to discuss a method of encorportating more powerful and convinient parsing within _perl_; not necessarily directly within the reg-ex engine, and most likely not within a reg-ex statement. I know we have Yacc and Parser modules. But try this out for size: Perl's very name is about extraction and reporting. Reg-ex's are fundamental to this, but for complex jobs, so is parsing. After I think about this some more, I'm going to make an RFC for it. If anyone has any hardened opinions on the matter, I'd like to hear from you while my brain churns. -Michael
Re: XML/HTML-specific ? and ? operators? (was Re: RFC 145 (alternate approach))
I am working on an RFC
to allow boolean logic ( and || and !) to apply a number of patterns to
the same substring to allow easier mining of information out of such
constructs.
What, you don't like: :-)
$pattern = $conjunction eq "AND"
? join('' = map { "(?=.*$_)" } @patterns)
| join("|" =@patterns);
--tom
Re: XML/HTML-specific ? and ? operators? (was Re: RFC 145 (alternate approach))
Jonathan Scott Duff wrote: On Wed, Sep 06, 2000 at 08:40:37AM -0700, Nathan Wiger wrote: What if we added special XML/HTML-parsing ? and ? operators? What if we just provided deep enough hooks into the RE engine that specialized parsing constructs like these could easily be added by those who need them? In principle, that's a very Perlish thing to do... -Scott -- Jonathan Scott Duff [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- David Corbin Mach Turtle Technologies, Inc. http://www.machturtle.com [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: XML/HTML-specific ? and ? operators? (was Re: RFC 145 (alternate approach))
...My point is that I think we're approaching this
the wrong way. We're trying to apply more and more parser power into what
classically has been the lexer / tokenizer, namely our beloved
regular-expression engine.
I've been thinking the same thing. It seems to me that the attempts to
shoehorn parsers into regex syntax have either been unsuccessful
(yielding an underpowered extension) or illegible or both.
An approach that appears to have been more successful is to find ways
to integrate regexes *into* parser code more effectively. Damian
Conway's Parse::RecDescent module does this, and so does SNOBOL.
In SNOBOL, if you want to write a pattern that matches balanced
parenteses, it's easy and straightforward and legible:
parenstring = '(' *parenstring ')'
| *parenstring *parenstring
| span('()')
(span('()') is like [^()]* in Perl.)
The solution in Parse::RecDescent is similar.
Compare this with the solutions that work now:
# man page solution
$re = qr{
\(
(?:
(? [^()]+ )# Non-parens without backtracking
|
(??{ $re }) # Group with matching parens
)*
\)
}x;
This is not exactly the same, but I tried a direct translation:
$re = qr{ \( (??{$re}) \)
| (??{$re}) (??{$re})
| (? [^()]+)
}x;
and it looks worse and dumps core.
This works:
qr{
^
(?{ local $d=0 })
(?:
\(
(?{$d++})
|
\)
(?{$d--})
(?
(?{$d0})
(?!)
)
|
(? [^()]* )
)*
(?
(?{$d!=0})
(?!)
)
$
}x;
but it's rather difficult to take seriously.
The solution proposed in the recent RFC 145:
/([^\m]*)(\m)(.*?)(\M)([^\m\M]*)/g
is not a lot better. David Corbin's alternative looks about the same.
On a different topic from the same barrel, we just got a proposal that
([23,39]) should match only numbers between 23 and 39. It seems to me
that rather than trying to shoehorn one special-purpose syntax after
another into the regex language, which is already overloaded, that it
would be better to try to integrate regex matching better with Perl
itself. Then you could use regular Perl code to control things like
numeric ranges.
Note that at present, you can get the effect of [(23,39)] by writing
this:
(\d+)(?(?{$1 23 || $1 39})(?!))
which isn't pleasant to look at, but I think it points in the right
direction, because it is a lot more flexible than [(23,39)]. If you
need to fix it to match 23.2 but not 39.5, it is straightforward to do
that:
(\d+(\.\d*)?)(?(?{$1 23 || $1 39})(?!))
The [(23,39)] notation, however, is doomed.All you can do is
propose Yet Another Extension for Perl 7.
The big problem with
(\d+)(?(?{$1 23 || $1 39})(?!))
is that it is hard to read and understand.
The real problem here is that regexes are single strings. When you
try to compress a programming language into a single string this way,
you end up with something that looks like Befunge or TECO. We are
going in the same direction here.
Suppose there were an alternative syntax for regexes that did *not*
require that everything be compressed into a single string? Rather
than trying to pack all of Perl into the regex syntax, bit by bit,
using ever longer and more bizarre punctuation sequences, I think a
better solution would be to try to expose the parts of the regex
engine that we are trying to control.
I have some ideas about how to do this, and I will try to write up an
RFC this week.
Re: XML/HTML-specific ? and ? operators? (was Re: RFC 145 (alternate approach))
On Wed, Sep 06, 2000 at 03:47:57PM -0700, Randal L. Schwartz wrote: "Mark-Jason" == Mark-Jason Dominus [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Mark-Jason I have some ideas about how to do this, and I will try to Mark-Jason write up an RFC this week. "You want Icon, you know where to find it..." :) Hey, it's one of the few languages we haven't yet stolen a neat feature or few from... (I don't really count the few regex thingies as full-fledged stealing, more like an experimental sleight-of-hand.) But yes, a way that allows programmatic backtracking sort of "inside out" from a regex would be nice. -- $jhi++; # http://www.iki.fi/jhi/ # There is this special biologist word we use for 'stable'. # It is 'dead'. -- Jack Cohen
Re: RFC 145 (alternate approach)
I think it's cool too, I don't like the @^g and ^@G either. But I worry about the double-meaning of the []'s in your solution, and the fact that these: /\m[...]...\M/; /\d[...]...\D/; Will work so differently. Maybe another character like ()'s that takes a list: /\m(,[).*?\M(,])/; That solves the multiple characters problem at least. However, we still have a \M and \m, which isn't consistent if they're going to take arguments. But, how about a new ?m operator? /(?m|[).*?(?M|])/; Then the ?M matches pairs with the previous ?m, if there was one that was matched. The | character separates or'ed sets consistent with other regex patterns. -Nate David Corbin wrote: I never saw one comment on this, and the more I think about it, the more I like it. So, I thought I'd throw it back out one more time...(If I get no comments this time, I'll be quiet :) David Corbin wrote: I haven't given this a WHOLE lot of thought, so please, shoot it full of holes. I certainly like the goal of this RFC, but I dislike the idea that the specification for what chacters are going to match are specified outside of the RE.
Re: RFC 145 (alternate approach)
Nathan Wiger wrote:
I think it's cool too, I don't like the @^g and ^@G either. But I worry
about the double-meaning of the []'s in your solution, and the fact that
these:
/\m[...]...\M/;
/\d[...]...\D/;
Well, it's not really a double meaning. It's a set of characters, just
like '[]' always means.
Granted, the meaning between upper lower case characters is not the
same here, but I don't think
it always is the same currently (positive/negative).
Will work so differently. Maybe another character like ()'s that takes a
list:
/\m(,[).*?\M(,])/;
If you don't want to use [] (which limits it to single character
"para-brace-ets"),
then I"d suggest using {} as that is already established for use in with
\? type
escapes.
Maybe: m/\m{()|(\[)}.*?\M{()|(])}/;
Essentially everything inside the {} is in-fact another pattern, and the
back-references within
match "1-for-1". Of course, with this syntax you'd have to escape
actual braces m{\{} which I don't
much care for...
That solves the multiple characters problem at least. However, we still
have a \M and \m, which isn't consistent if they're going to take
arguments.
I'm not sure I understand your point here.
But, how about a new ?m operator?
/(?m|[).*?(?M|])/;
Let's combine yor operator with my example from above where everything
inside the (?m) or the ?(M)
fits the syntax of a RE.
/(?m()|\[).*?(?M()|(\]))
Then the ?M matches pairs with the previous ?m, if there was one that
was matched. The | character separates or'ed sets consistent with other
regex patterns.
You can do that, or you can say it's done with backreferences (as noted
above)
-Nate
David Corbin wrote:
I never saw one comment on this, and the more I think about it, the more
I like it. So,
I thought I'd throw it back out one more time...(If I get no comments
this time, I'll
be quiet :)
David Corbin wrote:
I haven't given this a WHOLE lot of thought, so please, shoot it full
of holes.
I certainly like the goal of this RFC, but I dislike the idea that the
specification for
what chacters are going to match are specified outside of the RE.
--
David Corbin
Mach Turtle Technologies, Inc.
http://www.machturtle.com
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RFC 145 (alternate approach)
Richard Proctor wrote:
No ?] should match the closest ?[ it should nest the ?[s bound by any
brackets in the regex and act accordingly.
Good point.
Also this does not work as a definition of simple bracket matching as you
need ( to match ) not ( to match (. A ?[ list should specify for each
element what the matching element is perhaps
Actually, it should with some simple precedence rules. If ?] reverses
the ordering of ?[, *and* we define "reversing" for bracketed pairs
consistent with the current Perl definition in other contexts, then this
is all automatic:
"normal" "reversed"
-- ---
103301
99aa99
(( ))
+ +
{{[!_ _!]}}
{__A1( )A1__}
That is, when a bracket is encountered, the "reverse" of that is
automatically interpreted as its closing counterpart. This is the same
reason why qq// and qq() and qq{} all work without special notation.
So we can replace @^g and @^G with simple precendence rules, the same
that are actually invoked automatically throughout Perl already.
(?[( = ),{ = }, 01 = 10)
sort of hashish in style.
I actually think this is redundant, for the reasons I mentioned above.
I'm not striking it down outright, but it seems simple rules could make
all this unnecessary.
-Nate
Re: RFC 145 (alternate approach)
David Corbin wrote:
I've got some vague ideas on solving all of these, I'll go into if
people like the basic concept enough.
not just in regexes, but in general, a way to extend the set of bratches
that Perl knows about would be very nice. for instance it is very difficult
for people using european keyboards to produce curlies; if it was possible to
say that Q is the opening brace and it matches against q later, or any arbitrary
characters, such as the single-character versions of and which I am not
capable of producing, if it was possible to specify this in the code somewhere
for instance
$CORE::BRATCH{'Q'} = 'q';
(or maybe lexically scoped)
after that one could say
$isafromline = qrQ^Fromq;
for instance.
--
David Nicol 816.235.1187 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
perl -e'@w=;for(;;){sleep print[rand@w]}' /usr/dict/words
Re: RFC 145 (alternate approach)
On Tue 05 Sep, David Corbin wrote:
Nathan Wiger wrote:
But, how about a new ?m operator?
/(?m|[).*?(?M|])/;
Let's combine yor operator with my example from above where everything
inside the (?m) or the ?(M)
fits the syntax of a RE.
/(?m()|\[).*?(?M()|(\]))
Then the ?M matches pairs with the previous ?m, if there was one that
was matched. The | character separates or'ed sets consistent with other
regex patterns.
There already is a (?m
The whole (?x set of thingies is getting complicated... The list of what is
used at present (and in current suggestions is:
Current Use in perl5
(?# comment
(?imsx flags
(?-imsx flags
(?: subexpression without bracket capture
(?= zero-width positive look ahead
(?! zero width negative look ahead
(?=zero-width positve look behind
(?!zero width negative look behind
(?{code}Execute code
(??{code} Execute code and use result as pattern
(? Independant subexpression
(?(condition)yes-pattern
(?(condition)yes-pattern|no-pattern
Suggested in RFCs either current or in development
(?$foo= suggested for assignment (RFC 112)
(?%foo= suggested for hash assignment (RFC 150?)
(?@foo suggested list expansion (?:$foo[0] | $foo[1] | ...) ? (RFC 166)
(?Q@foo) Quote each item of lists (RFC 166)
(?^pattern) matches anything that does not match pattern
(RFC 166 but will be somewhere else on next rewrite [1])
(?F Failure tokens (RFC in development by me [1])
(?r),(?f) Suggested in Direction Control RFC 1
(? Boolean regexes (RFC in development [1])
(?*{code}) Execute code with pass/fail result (RFC in development [1])
[1] these will all be in an RFC which will probably be out in a day or so.
Unused (? sequences
a,b,c,d,e, ,g,h, ,j,k,l, ,n,o,p,q, , ,t,u,v,w,x,y,z
A,B,C,D,E, ,G,H,I,J,K,L,M,N,O,P, ,R,S,T,U,V,W,X,Y,Z
0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9
`_,."+[];'~)
(if I have forgotten any do tell and I will try and keep this list up to
date.
Richard
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RFC 145 (alternate approach)
I think David's on to something good here. A major problem with holding the bracket-matching possibilities in a special variable (or a pair of them) is that one can't figure out what the RE is going to do just by looking at it -- you have to look elsewhere. Nathan Wiger wrote: I think it's cool too, I don't like the @^g and ^@G either. But I worry about the double-meaning of the []'s in your solution, and the fact that these: /\m[...]...\M/; /\d[...]...\D/; Will work so differently. Yes. Things that look similar should act similar. Things that act differently should look different. But, how about a new ?m operator? /(?m|[).*?(?M|])/; Then the ?M matches pairs with the previous ?m, if there was one that was matched. The | character separates or'ed sets consistent with other regex patterns. Ah, this is a neat idea! Unfortunately, as Richard Proctor pointed out, ?m is taken. Perhaps (?[list|of|openers) and (?]list|of|closers) ? Does that look too bizarre, with the lone square bracket in each? Or does that serve to make it mnemonic (which is my intention)? And --- can-of-worms time --- we're only intending the list elements to be constant characters, but that syntax *looks* like it can take a regular expression for any of the list elements, so people are going to try to do that someday. I cannot imagine what someone would want do use a regexp in such a construct, but abuses of the language are not limited to *my* imagination :-) (?[list|of|openers) would match any expression in the alternation list. Subsequently, (?]list|of|closers) would match the *corresponding* expression, but would keep track of the nesting level of the originally- matching open-bracket expression. Sound about right? -- Eric J. Roode, [EMAIL PROTECTED] print scalar reverse sort Senior Software Engineer'tona ', 'reh', 'ekca', 'lre', Myxa Corporation'.r', 'h ', 'uj', 'p ', 'ts';
