On Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:19:40 +0000, kj wrote: > I'm sure that it is possible to find cases in which the *current* > implementation of re.search() would be inefficient, but that's because > this implementation is perverse, which, I guess, is ultimately the point > of my original post. Why privilege the special case of a > start-of-string anchor?
Because wanting to see if a string matches from the beginning is a very important and common special case. > What if you wanted to apply an end-anchored > pattern to some prefix of your 4GB string? Why not have a special re > method for that? And another for every possible special case? Because they're not common special cases. They're rare and not special enough to justify special code. > If the concern is efficiency for such cases, then simply implement > optional offset and length parameters for re.search(), to specify any > arbitrary substring to apply the search to. To have a special-case > re.match() method in addition to a general re.search() method is > antithetical to language minimalism, and plain-old bizarre. Maybe > there's a really good reason for it, but it has not been mentioned yet. There is, and it has. You're welcome to keep your own opinion, but I don't think you'll find many experienced Python coders will agree with it. -- Steven -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
