On 04/09/10 12:32, Dotan Cohen wrote: >> Regexes do have their uses. It's a case of knowing when they are the >> best approach and when they aren't. > > Agreed. The problems begin when the "when they aren't" is not recognised.
But problems also arises when people are suggesting overly complex series of built-in functions for what is better handled by regex. Using built-in functions (to me at least) is not a natural way to match strings, and makes things less understandable for anything but very simple manipulations. Regex is like Query-by-Example (QBE), in database, you give an example and you get a result; you give the general pattern and you get a match. Regex is declarative similar to full-blown parser, instead of procedural like built-in functions. Regex's unsuitability for complex parsing stems from terseness and inability to handle arbitrary nests. People need to recognize when built-in function isn't suitable and when bringing forth pyparsing for parsing one or two is just an overkill. Unreasonable phobia to regex is just as much harmful as overuse of it. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
