> Well, other languages have explored that option, and I think that makes
> for an unnatural interface.  If you think of regexes as part of a
> larger language, you really want them to be as incestuous as possible,

These days we can be that without feeling that guilty since pcre exists.

> just as any other part of the language is incestuous with the rest of
> the language.  That's part of what I mean when I say that I'm trying to
> look at regular expressions as just a strange variant of Perl code.
> 
> Looking at it from a slightly different angle, regular expressions are
> in great part control syntax, and library interfaces are lousy at
> implementing control.

Assuming one wants to have access to regex low level ops, but if one
wants just matches/not and submatches, a regex(3)-like interface is
quite enough.

> Larry

-- 
$jhi++; # http://www.iki.fi/jhi/
        # There is this special biologist word we use for 'stable'.
        # It is 'dead'. -- Jack Cohen

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