On Monday 04 June 2001 08:38 pm, Jarkko Hietaniemi wrote:
> > : Though whether being able to
> > : yank out the RE engine and treat it as a standalone library is
> > : important enough to warrant being treated as a design goal or not is a
> > : separate issue. (I think so, as it also means I can treat it as a
> > : black box for the moment so there's less to try and stuff in my head
> > : at once)
> >
> > As a fellow bear of very little brain, I'm just trying to point out that
> > we already have a good example of the dangers to that approach.
>
> Still, having the regexen as "reusable component" (i.e. library)
> wouldn't be a bad idea. The current regex code most definitely isn't
> detachable or reusable, so we can't have said to have explored that
> option.
But to what extent? I seem to recall one of the main reasons against
complete separation was (speculated, perhaps) that it was too inefficient
for the regex engine to be ignorant of Perl internals.
Given that the regexen, in all its complexity, is one of the more enviable
capabilities of Perl (traditionally), it would certainly be nice (for
others, I suppose) to be able to gain Perl Regex Handling via a couple calls
and shared library. But it was counter-argued that much of the regex's
speed (and some of its functionality) was directly tied to Perl internal
structures, and the layer of abstraction necessary to completely separate
the two would not benefit either Perl, or the stand-alone engine, for both
cases, so why bother? IOW, if you're not going to completely exorcise Perl
from its regexes, why try to exorcise the regexes from Perl?
--
Bryan C. Warnock
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
