[GSOC idea] enhance regular expressions?

[bearophile]

Dmitry Olshansky:

> http://dsource.org/projects/dmdscript-2. Note that I haven't touched it 
> in couple of dmd releases, it may need cosmetic fixes.

I will try it.


> http://swtch.com/~rsc/regexp/regexp1.html, it could be a starting point, 

Before fully embracing the contents of that page, look at its critics too.


> 3) When I saw Don's comments on fixing CTFE, I remembered something D 
> can do _better_  than most others mainstream compiled languages - 
> metaprogramming. So having a StaticRegex compiled at compile-time 
> (inevitable calambour) would give us an  edge over comparative 
> implementations.

But it inflates the binary too, if overused, because each RE pattern becomes a compiled function (or more than one).


> Another thing to sort out is style: are we sticking with ECMA or 
> switching to Perl / GNU? Shall we provide also different versions of  
> syntax?

One RE syntax in a language is more than enough :-) But there are some features of the Python REs that I'd like to see bolted-on to the ECMA REs used by D. So I suggest a superset of ECMA.

Bye,
bearophile