[GSOC idea] enhance regular expressions?

[Dmitry Olshansky]

On 29.03.2011 1:47, bearophile wrote:
> 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.
>
>
No problem, feel free to report any issues. There should be working 
bugtracker if I remember correctly.
>> 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.
>

I've seen them, and they are expected, also I thought I clearly 
presented some of logical considerations.
>> 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).
>
Well, in case that result would be a data structure or bytecode created 
at the compile-time using CTFE. The function for matching or replacing 
using the resulting structure/program would be the same as run-time one. 
It's "inflating" binary like any static data. Then 
StaticRegex!"whatever" should be convenience wrapper hiding all this 
complexity. Anyway I partly agree, there are limitations and 
considerations when using such technique. And it would rely on CTFE that 
does not leak memory like hell.

>> 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.
BTW which ones? Now is the time to propose them.

> So I suggest a superset of ECMA.
>
Your vote counted ;)

> Bye,
> bearophile


-- 
Dmitry Olshansky