On 20/01/2014 16:04, Neil Cerutti wrote:
On 2014-01-20, Roy Smith <r...@panix.com> wrote:
In article
<mailman.5748.1390216721.18130.python-l...@python.org>, Ben
Finney <ben+pyt...@benfinney.id.au> wrote:
Be aware that regex is not the solution to all parsing
problems; for many parsing problems it is an attractive but
inappropriate tool. You may need to construct a more specific
parser for your needs. Even if it's possible with regex, the
resulting pattern may be so complex that it's better to write
it out more explicitly.
Oh, posh.
You are correct; regex is not the solution to all parsing
problems, but it is a powerful tool which people should be
encouraged to learn. For some problems, it is indeed the
correct tool, and this seems like one of them. Discouraging
people from learning about regexes is an educational
anti-pattern which I see distressingly often on this newsgroup.
I use regular expressions regularly, for example, when editing
text with gvim. But when I want to use them in Python I have to
contend with the re module. I've never become comfortable with
it.
You don't have to, there's always the "new" regex module that's been on
pypi for years. Or are you saying that you'd like to use regex but
other influences that are outside of your sphere of control prevent you
from doing so?
--
My fellow Pythonistas, ask not what our language can do for you, ask
what you can do for our language.
Mark Lawrence
--
https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
