Antoine De Groote wrote: > Hello, > > Can anybody tell me the reason(s) why regular expressions are not built > into Python like it is the case with Ruby and I believe Perl? Like for > example in the following Ruby code > > line = 'some string' > > case line > when /title=(.*)/ > puts "Title is #$1" > when /track=(.*)/ > puts "Track is #$1" > when /artist=(.*)/ > puts "Artist is #$1" > end > > I'm sure there are good reasons, but I just don't see them. > > Python Culture says: 'Explicit is better than implicit'. May it be > related to this? > > Regards, > antoine
I notice two issues here. Only one has anything to do with regular expressions. The other one with 'explicit is better than implicit': the many implicit passing operations of Rubys case statement. Using pseudo-Python notation this could be refactored into a more explicit and not far less concise style: if line.match( "title=(.*)" ) as m: print "Title is %s"%m.group(1) elif line.match( "track=(.*)" ) as m: print "Track is %s"%m.group(1) elif line.match( "artist=(.*)" ) as m: print "Artist is %s"%m.group(1) Here the result of the test line.match( ) is assigned to the local variable m if bool(line.match( )) == True. Later m can be used in the subsequent block. Moreover match becomes a string method. No need for extra importing re and applying re.compile(). Both can be done in str.match() if necessary. Kay -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
