On Fri, 15 Dec 2000, Deven T. Corzine wrote:
> On 15 Dec 2000, Randal L. Schwartz wrote:
>
> > >>>>> "Deven" == Deven T Corzine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> >
> > Deven> As for special-case rules, I believe that my proposed modification would
> > Deven> REMOVE a special-case semantic rule, at the cost of added complexity at the
> > Deven> implementation level. (The cost decision of whether that added complexity
> > Deven> is worthwhile is a separate consideration.)
> > No, it would break a much higher overriding rule of "left most match
> > wins".
>
> Can you give a concrete, real-life example of code that my proposed change
> would actually break, not a contrived hypothetical case design to break?
well, there is the trivial case that it breaks
m/b.*d/;
if i wrote that, i expect, since it is documented this way, to find the
first b and everything up to and including the first d after that.
but here's one from some code i wrote last week. i want to find all the
groups of things like "212-555-1212". this particular regex adequately
describes the un-normalized data that i had to munge.
@matches = m/(\d.*?)\s+/g;
the right way (the documented way), gives me the entire phone number.
yours give me "2".
you should be quiet now, or write your own language.
--
brian d foy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Director of Technology, Smith Renaud, Inc.
875 Avenue of the Americas, 2510, New York, NY 10001
V: (212) 239-8985
