[Python-Dev] Revising RE docs (original) (raw)

Stephen J. Turnbull stephen at xemacs.org
Thu Sep 1 07:41:45 CEST 2005

"Greg" == Greg Ewing <greg.ewing at canterbury.ac.nz> writes:

Greg> Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:

>> But you could have string objects (or a derivative) grow a
>> "compiled_regexp" attribute internally.

Greg> That would make the core dependent on the re module, which I
Greg> think would be a bad idea.

Probably.

Greg> Personally I like the way the compilation step is made at
Greg> least somewhat explicit. Regular expressions are not
Greg> strings; a string is just one way of representing a regular
Greg> expression. There could potentially be other representations
Greg> that compile to the same re object.

I guess I agree, but I would put the emphasis elsewhere. Something like, think of the call to compile() as a declaration that this string (or other representation) represents a regular expression. The actual compilation is an accidental side effect: it could be postponed to the first call of .match() or .search().

So I guess I would prefer a nomenclature like

r = re.RegExp (string)

over

r = re.compile (string)

Not a big deal though.

-- School of Systems and Information Engineering http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp University of Tsukuba Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN Ask not how you can "do" free software business; ask what your business can "do for" free software.

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