I propose a /n flag for regular expressions, which would swap the default
capturing/non-capturing behavior between ( ) and (?: ) operators (that is,
( ) would not capture, and (?: ) would capture).
The /n property would reflect on the RegExp object as `Noncapturing ==
true`.
Is there any precedent for this in other perl-based regexp packages?
....Perl6....
But more to the point of my intended proposal, .NET has the /n flag for
turning off capturing for ( ) -- I'm not sure if it then turns on
capturing for (?: ) or not, someone more familiar with .NET would have
to inform here.
That's interesting. I found
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/yd1hzczs.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/yd1hzczs.aspx#Explicit
There is no sign of non-capturing syntax (?:...) here at all. This n flag
seems a bit different from what you propose.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bs2twtah.aspx#noncapturing_group
Again, I'm not sure if .NET swaps the default behavior as I'm proposing,
when /n is present. But it seems quite natural to me that /n would do so,
rather than having a strange asymmetry where without the flag, both
capturing and non-capturing are possible, but with the flag present *only*
non-capturing is possible.
As with all things RegExp, I wonder what Steve thinks.
Do you mean Steven Levithan (aka "Mr Regex")? If so, he already commented
at length on that blog post I mentioned. I guess he implies the discussion
is worth having by saying "...and which can be explored in future
ECMAScript specs."
--Kyle
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