Thomas Gutzmann wrote:
Hi Alex,
a 100% solution is not possible with one RE because embedded quotes cannot be converted at the same time as the rest is parsed.
But I don't think they can be simply substituted independent of the parsing.
The best example of the embedded quote case is
"""My family"",""My PowerBook"",""My Defender 110""","1","[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
I have modified the Perl script to convert double doublequotes (""x"") to single simple quotes ('x'). It's just one way, and of course I'm using a regular expression for that:
Good try - you may be up to 75% or 80% now :-) :-)
But it fails on a few very common cases, including empty, quoted fields and multiple adjacent quotes within fields
d:\Our Documents\Alex> perl re1.pl
Original: """My family"",""My PowerBook"",""My Defender 110""","","[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
After replacement: "'My family','My PowerBook','My Defender 110'","","[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Item 1: 'My family','My PowerBook'
Item 2: 'My Defender 110'
Item 3: ,
d:\Our Documents\Alex>
I'm sure there's a way round this too .... but I suspect it's time to stop drawing out these examples.
As you can see, embedded newline characters don't affect the result; this problem must be solved in the routine reading the lines. You can also ignore EOL bei excluding "$" (this is EOL for RE), but I haven't tested it, and I also don't have the time for it. Normally, you don't have these problems.
Actually, normally I do have this problem. Palm Pilot exports usually have embedded CR within quoted fields, and that's one I often deal with.
Most of us use hands and feet for their respective purposes. So why do programmers want to use one tool for all?
Because there's a level of inefficiency and discomfort caused by frequent changes in language and tools. Because it's hard to become an expert in one language - doing it in Rev and Perl and PHP and Python and Java and .... is probably impossible. Because it's easy, but wrong, to write one language using the style and tricks of another (see various blog threads about "Python's not Java", etc.)
But mostly just because programmers are people :-)
Well, I don't agree. A good programmer should master a whole box of tools, and I also expect good developers to be multilingual.
I didn't say that programmers *should* use one tool (in fact, I said they should use multiple).
These were the reasons why , IMO, programmers *want* to use one tool :-)
One of the problems we have in IT today comes from the fact, that too many people learn just one language (Java), and just the basics of database systems (primitive SQL � la MySQL, no procedural SQL), and that they are also limited in their knowledge of tools.
Yeah, I've often advocated multiple tools on this list - Python/Pythoncard is my common alternate to RunRev.
I used Perl fairly extensively back in the early days ('88-'91 or '92) and developed an allergy to it then; maybe it's time to give it another try.
Cheers -- Alex.
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