add regexp crate to Rust distribution (implements RFC 7) by BurntSushi · Pull Request #13700 · rust-lang/rust (original) (raw)

I don't really like re because I think it's too short. Note that Python's original regexp module was called regex. (re was added in Python 1.5 and regex wasn't removed until Python 2.5, so they had to coexist.) I do like the notion of writing re::Regexp, but I also think it's useful for the name of the crate to stand on its own.

I would not be opposed to naming the macro re! though, it seemed like there was some value in making it the same name as the crate. I don't feel strongly about it.

• Languages that use some variation of regexp: Go, Ruby, Javascript
• Languages that use some variation of regex: C++, Java, Python, OCaml, Haskell

(The .NET crowd is notably missing, but they call their module RegularExpressions. Objective C calls theirs NSRegularExpression.)

I don't know what it means to choose one name over another based on Google Trends telling me that there is a 0.0000098675% difference between the two in 2008.

There seems to be a slight overall preference toward Regex and there are more language libraries using Regex as the name of their module which provides regexps. If I switch the name of the crate, type and macro to regex, Regex and regex!, respectively, will that make everyone reasonably happy?