Hi, for an XSLT-based up-translation engine that I'm writing, I am using ORO matcher. Works very well (and better than the other two options), thanks!
Now I wonder about the following and wanted some input from experts on theory of regular expressions and their compilers and matchers: is there some algebraic way of comparing two regex patterns (not a string with a pattern, but two patterns.) The point is to figure out if one pattern is (partially) contained in another pattern and if strings matched by one pattern are also matched by another pattern (i.e. the set of strings mathing pattern 2 is a subset of the set of strings matching pattern 1.) The use case for this is to find ambiguities between rules using such related patterns such that one can test these patterns in groups (or, for XSLT, assign higher priority to the more specific pattern.) The point is that the computer should make this analysis not the guy who defines a transformation using many regexes. Generally evaluating such similarity relationships could be fairly involved. But I think this question should be part of any theoretical discussion of regexes, and if anyone knows of some information about this please holler. Actually I am just now searching through the Annals of the ACM and there are a few pertinent articles that feel like this is a hard problem. Anyone knows of any implementations of any of this? Do people here feel that comparison operations between Patterns would be a good addition to ORO (if it is feasible)? thanks, -Gunther Schadow PS: I would appreciate if you could put my personal email address on your replies. Thanks. -- Gunther Schadow, M.D., Ph.D. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Medical Information Scientist Regenstrief Institute for Health Care Adjunct Assistant Professor Indiana University School of Medicine tel:1(317)630-7960 http://aurora.regenstrief.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
