On 14.03.2012 0:54, H. S. Teoh wrote:
On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 11:27:57PM +0400, Dmitry Olshansky wrote:
For a couple of releases we have a new revamped std.regex, that as
far as I'm concerned works nicely, thanks to my GSOC commitment last
summer. Yet there was certain dark trend around std.regex/std.regexp
as both had severe bugs, missing documentation and what not, enough
to consider them unusable or dismiss prematurely.
It's about time to break this gloomy aura, and show that std.regex
is actually easy to use, that it does the thing and has some nice
extras.
Link: http://blackwhale.github.com/regular-expression.html
Comments are welcome from experts and newbies alike, in fact it
should encourage people to try out a few tricks ;)
[...]
Yay! Updated docs is always a good thing. I'd like to do some
copy-editing to make it nicer to read. (Hope you don't mind my extensive
revisions, I'm trying to make the docs as professional as possible.)
My revisions are in straight text under the quoted sections, and inline
comments are enclosed in [].
Introduction
String processing is a kind of daily routine that most applications do
in a one way or another. It should come as no wonder that many
programming languages have standard libraries stoked with specialized
functions for common needs.
String processing is a common task performed by many applications. Many
programming languages come with standard libraries that are equipped
with a variety of functions for common string processing needs.
I like equipped ;)
The D programming language standard library among others offers a nice
assortment in std.string and generic ones from std.algorithm.
The D programming language standard library also offers a nice
assortment of such functions in std.string, as well as generic functions
in std.algorithm that can also work with strings.
Still no amount of fixed functionality could cover all needs, as
naturally flexible text data needs flexible solutions.
Still no amount of predefined string functions could cover all needs.
Text data is very flexible by nature, and so needs flexible solutions.
Here is where regular expressions come in handy, often succinctly
called as regexes.
This is where regular expressions, or regexes for short, come in.
Simple yet powerful language for defining patterns of strings, put
together with a substitution mechanism, forms a Swiss Army knife of
text processing.
Regexes are a simple yet powerful language for defining patterns of
strings, and when integrated with a substitution mechanism, forms a
Swiss Army knife of text processing.
It's considered so useful that a number of languages provides built-in
support for regular expressions, though one though one should not jump
to conclusion that built-in implies faster processing or more
features. It's all about getting more convenient and friendly syntax
for typical operations and usage patterns.
It's considered so useful that a number of languages provides built-in
support for regular expressions. (This doesn't necessarily mean,
however, that built-in implies faster processing or more features. It's
more a matter of providing a more convenient and friendly syntax for
typical operations and usage patterns.)
[I think it's better to put the second part in parentheses, since it's
not really the main point of this doc.]
I think putting that much in parens is a bad idea, but your wording is
clearly superior.
The D programming language provides a standard library module
std.regex.
[OK]
Being a highly expressive systems language, it opens a possibility to
get a good look and feel via core features, while keeping it's
implementation within the language.
Being a highly expressive systems language, D allows regexes to be
implemented within the language itself, yet still have the same level of
readability and usability that a built-in implementation would provide.
Nice!
We'll see how close to built-ins one can get this way.
We will see below how close to built-in regexes we can achieve.
By the end of article you'd have a good understanding of regular
expression capabilities in this library, and how to utilize it's API
in a most straightforward way.
By the end of this article, you will have a good understanding of the
regular expression capabilities offered by this library, and how to
utilize its API in the most straightforward way.
Examples in this article assume the reader has fairly good
understanding of regex elements, yet it's not required to get an
understanding of the API.
Examples in this article assume that the reader has fairly good
understanding of regex elements, but this is not required to get an
understanding of the API.
[I'll do this much for now. More to come later.]
Thanks.
--
Dmitry Olshansky
